The Weight of Snow
by jenhill7
Summary: ELSANNA Fic, canon, takes place directly after the events of the movie. The Queen is tormented by nightmares regarding Anna's death. Both sisters have to come to terms with the feelings that arise between them. Lots of fluff, lots of romance, a little angst to keep the story moving.
1. Chapter 1 - What I've Done

Finally nightfall, after the longest and most terribly glorious day of Elsa's life. The palace had recovered from the furor of receiving the Queen and Princess Anna back into the castle, and hardly had they entered the doors when they were whisked apart again, Queen Elsa to speak to the visiting dignitaries and soothe them from their worries, and Anna to be fussed over by Kai, Gerda, and the entire cohort of waiting staff. Elsa spoke to Kai first and asked him to summon the Royal Physician to examine the Princess. Elsa had to be certain that Anna was well, that her body and heart had not suffered from its slow and painful freeze.

With all her soul she wished she could be with her sister, but every responsibility she had once thrown to the icy winds was upon her shoulders once more. This future, and all of Elsa's royal duties, was also part of Anna's sacrifice, and she would face up to it as she had been taught and trained all her life.

So now, with the day done, having spoken to the regency council and the visiting heads of state assuring them of continued trade and posterity, and having witnessed the devastation she had wreaked upon the palace, Elsa finally had a few moments of solitude and peace.

She turned purposefully down the dark corridors and into the ballroom. This is where it all began. Her heels clacked dully against the polished parquet floor. She stood still and looked around the gloomy room. It had been here that she had played with her dear younger sister, had created the first incarnation of Olaf, and finally had cradled a stunned child named Anna in her lap, drifts of snow all around them.

_Elsa, what have you done? This is getting out of hand!_

Her father's words had been seared into her memory for all time. Elsa stood here and knew he had the best intentions, that saving Anna was necessary, but did he have to do exactly what that troll suggested? He was the king; surely he could have martialled his own authority to make the best decision for his family. Was it really necessary to keep Elsa's magic a secret, and separating the two sisters from each other? Keeping Anna safe became the byword of the family, a task that Elsa both cherished and despised for all the long years of separation that passed.

Elsa slowly walked to the ballroom doors. The floor here had heaved slightly in a great arc away from the doors. She dredged recriminating words from her mind and gagged on their fell contents.

_What, what did I ever do to you? Why do you shut me out, why do you shut the world out? What are you so afraid of?_

Loss of control, here, in front of everyone, had been one of those great fears, but the greatest fear had always been hurting her sister. Running away made the only sense she had in those moments. If only she could put enough distance between them, if only she could wall herself up and away from the world forever, only then could she keep Anna safe.

But even that hadn't worked. How could she have known how stubborn her sister had grown to be?

How incredibly brave and beautiful?

Elsa allowed herself the memory of first seeing Anna in her ice palace, the open-eyed awe Anna seemed to show at the beautiful magical creation. She recalled the joy that leapt in her heart when she beheld her sister; joy quickly squashed by worry and shame. She allowed that memory to pierce her, because she flayed herself with the next.

Hearing of the plight of her snow-damned kingdom crumbled every fragile hope in freedom and peace she had allowed to blossom, ever so briefly, in her heart. The storm would never end, Elsa could not control it, and the burst of magic that came from her heart held every broken promise and dream, knives of pure frost to reave her from every happily ever after.

Only to behold Anna, fallen upon the floor. She did not see, she did not truly know what she had done, but she should have seen, she should have known! If only she had faced up to her responsibilities even then, the rest would not have happened.

_Don't become the monster they fear you are!_

Elsa could feel frost under her feet even now, crusting the already wounded floor. She hugged herself with her arms, and the great shiver that flensed her muscles had everything to do with another sound that played itself over and over, mercilessly, in her heart. Her mind replayed it all, and she allowed it, because she couldn't make these same mistakes again and again, neither as a ruler, nor as a sister. If only she could harrow this lesson deep enough in her mind, make the scar of it conspicuous and broad, then maybe she would stop hurting the one person she loved most of all.

So she closed her eyes and brought the dread words to the very front of her mind, and relived it all.

_I tried to save her, but it was too late! Your sister is dead, because of you!_

The freak blizzard brought on by her worry and pain was brought to a shattering halt as the words had reverberated in her mind. The last, the greatest, the only task she had, to protect her sister and keep her safe, and she had failed. Anna, the dear, sweet, impulsive soul, dead at her hands.

It was more than she could bear. She would gladly take the blade. She had heard it unsheathed behind her with a bone chilling whisk and welcomed it. All she could hope for at the end was that Hans' aim would be true, and that he would kill her quickly.

She bit her lip in the bitter memory, and sunk to the ballroom floor as she relived it.

_Noooo!_

Anna's voice, unexpected. A rippling sound of breaking frost, then steel shattering and a concussive _whoomph_. Even in her confused misery, she had heard the last exhalation of her dear sister.

"Anna," she murmured now, even as she had screamed then, her hand to her forehead, her ice dress cool and soft around her on the parquet floor.

It had been the first time she had deliberately touched her sister in thirteen years. Her bare fingers, devoid of gloves, stroked the cold transparent majesty of ice that somehow held every facet of Anna's youth and beauty. Her final pose was one of incredible courage and defiance, hand upraised to stop the killing blow. But no matter how Elsa cried her name, or wept on her shoulder, for the longest minute of her life only ice remained. Anna, her dearest sister, was gone.

Ice, her last and greatest nemesis, the cause of all the separation for all the years of her life. Ice, the hated and despised aspect of magic she never wanted to bear, the burden she never wanted to have.

Then to have Anna return to her, to wrap her arms around the beloved frame, embracing her sister with every ounce of devotion and relief she could muster, to know that Anna had somehow returned; Elsa prayed to every god of her heritage in thanksgiving.

_An act of true love will thaw a frozen heart._

And now, just as earlier this day, Elsa smiled in sudden understanding. She lifted her face to look at the darkened ballroom. Love will thaw, and indeed it did. Elsa was able to lift the drifts of snow, and release light and life back into the world. For the first time, she was able to dissipate the effects of her magic, and restore her surroundings to their proper form.

But could it thaw everything? The future lay before her once again, as frozen and unchanging as it always appeared to be in the days of her solitude and isolation. Endless hours of study and preparation for the role she was born to take, and a lifetime of service to her kingdom and people. If only she could be as brave as Anna, and face this sword of endless duty and obligation without flinching.

Could love thaw even a frozen future, and deviate it from the endless monotony of the past?

There was only one way to find out. A quote from one of her favourite authors came to her. _The best way to predict the future is to create it._

Elsa rose purposefully from the floor. She spent a moment smoothing out her dress, making sure her hair was in place. She wouldn't go back to those tight buns she always used to wear, controlling her hair as if it helped control her magic. Neither would she wear those high-necked, long-sleeved dresses that only seemed to constrict and freeze her every movement. She looked down at her hands, pleased to see the long and pale fingers, the carefully maintained nails. No gloves either. Never more would she conceal, not feel.

They were small steps, but necessary ones, into this future she would create.

A future that mercifully still had a younger sister in it. Time to stop remembering the past, at least for now. It was time to visit Anna, to make sure that her sister was healthy and safe, and start breaking down the doors that had always stood between them.

Anna had watched Elsa walk away with the regency council, and only then let herself be petted and pulled by Gerda. Her favourite drawing room, now not-so-favourite with the memories of that horrible Hans, had been deemed unsafe with the dramatic freeze and thaw of the day, so Anna was led into a different sitting room, nearer the staff quarters and the kitchens. It was only as Gerda led her to sit on a very comfy couch that Anna realized she was incredibly tired, for she hadn't slept for over a day. Or was it two? It couldn't really be three, was it

A yawn cracked her mouth open, and she waved her hand in front of her mouth as Gerda bustled over with a blanket and pillow. "Queen Elsa has asked the Royal Physician to see to you," she said, "but you may certainly have a nap while you wait for her arrival."

"Fiddlesticks! I don't need a physician. And I'm not tir…" and her mouth cracked open once again in a yawn that tugged at her very jaws.

Gerda levelled her a look that spoke volumes without saying a word. "Okay, maybe just a few minutes," Anna murmured, already leaning into the pillow Gerda placed for her. The matronly woman tucked her in with the blanket and suddenly hissed, drawing out Anna's hand. Her knuckles were swollen and red and Anna chuckled again. "Oh, he had it coming," she slurred, voice thick with tiredness. "No one tries to kill my Elsa."

"Your parents would have been so proud of you, my lady," Gerda said. "It is one thing to teach courage, or to read of it in history and scroll, but quite another to live it. You sacrificed your life to save your Queen. You risked everything to save her. There is no act of love greater than this. I'm honoured to be of service to you." The most faithful servant even curtsied deeply to further cement her words.

The words struck Anna's heart, lodging there with delicious pain. She smiled at Gerda as she tucked her swollen hand under the blankets. As she closed her eyes she felt Gerda tugging her boots off her feet, and then she was aware of nothing else.

The Royal Physician, Sera Avundir, arrived four hours later, washed and cleaned from an emergency surgery for one of the Royal Guard. Gerda was loath to awaken the princess, but the Queen's orders still stood. She escorted the physician inside and gently shook the princess awake. "Princess Anna," she called, "I'm sorry to wake you, but the physician has arrived to examine you."

Anna came slowly out of sleep, heavy and thick with warmth and exhaustion. She blinked several times and yawned again as Sera Avundir sat on a stool before her. Anna marshalled her consciousness as she noticed the worn face of the physician, dressed immaculately in a dark dress with a golden braid on her shoulder signifying her rank and position.

"I've heard that you've had quite a day, Your Highness," Sera began, opening her kit next to her and bringing out her stethoscope. "Queen Elsa has asked me to ensure that there are no ill after effects from her magic. I understand that she froze your heart, and then you actually froze entirely…"

"It wasn't her fault," Anna protested, sitting straight up in the couch, the blanket falling from her shoulders. "Besides, I'm all right now, I'm completely thawed, everything is back to normal, so you don't even need to be here. You should take the night off, you look like you need it."

The physician smiled and then scowled at her. "Princess Anna, I will follow the orders of my Queen. This won't take long, and it won't hurt. Not like your broken arm."

"And that was the fault of the suit of armour."

"Indeed it was. Shall we begin?"

Gerda left the physician and the princess in privacy and the examination began. It was deft and quick, and included listening to Anna breathe, listening to her heart beat, looking into her eyes and ears, tapping and touching various parts of her abdomen, back, and shoulders, and so on. A proud light was in her eyes as she looked at Anna's hand, which she soothed with an infusion of arnica.

Then one final time of listening to her heart again, and holding her wrist to time out her pulse. That was the only time a flash of something crossed her face. "What is it?" Anna asked, but Sera scowled at her again and growled, "Patience, princess." When another minute or two had passed with holding her wrist, the physician finally straightened up and looked satisfied.

"Do you still like to receive candy at the end of an examination, princess?" Sera Avundir asked, whisking away her stethoscope and other supplies.

Anna only smiled at the memory of her last exam, the setting of her broken arm, and the very delicious plate of chocolate truffles that had been her reward. It had only been two years ago, and Anna thought that perhaps she should try to act like a grown-up for once, seeing as her eighteenth birthday was just a month ago, but before she could airily wave her hand and deny herself the pleasure, she found herself nodding instead.

The woman smiled. "Good. Don't ever change, Princess Anna. Your people love you just the way you are." The last few words seemed to squeak, as if the physician couldn't believe what she had just said. Then the woman touched Anna's shoulder and lent even more gravity to the moment, saying, "We almost lost both of you today, just as we lost your mother and father. In the past I may have bemoaned your impulsive nature, privately of course, while setting your bones," and she gave a low smile, "but it suited you perfectly today when you saved your sister. I shudder to think of what might have happened if you hadn't done it. At any rate, Your Highness, don't ever change."

Anna smiled back at the woman who had been responsible for setting bones and making casts and binding wounds from blade training. She had always seemed rather aloof and strict to the princess, but Anna suddenly recognized the depth of her warmth and caring. "Thank you, Sera. Your words mean a lot to me. And yes, bring on the chocolate, please!"

The physician laughed as she straightened up, then admitted Gerda back into the room. The matron already had a small offering of chocolates on a plate and a conspirator's smile on her face. "I thought your Highness would appreciate these at the end of her examination."

"I now need an audience with the Queen," Sera Avundir mentioned. At the rise of Anna's eyebrows, she continued, "Only to relay the news of the exam."

"Is there anything wrong?" Anna asked, the first chocolate stalled on the way to her mouth. She remembered that flash of surprise on Sera's face as she timed Anna's pulse.

"Your Highness is as healthy as a horse," the physician said, hefting her bag and glancing once again at her pocket watch. "Please ensure that the Princess eats a substantial meal tonight, mistress," she said to Gerda, "and she should get as much rest as possible in the next few days. Princess, I take your leave."

Sera Avundir bowed lightly to the princess, and Anna inclined her head, biting her way through another chocolate.

Her mention of the Queen brought a sense of worry to Anna's midsection. It was getting dark already and still Elsa had not returned? Anna knew there were other duties to see to, but how long would it all take?

The sense of loss and isolation was like a dagger in her chest. Had nothing really changed after all? Were they to return to the past as if today and the days before had not occurred? How much of her life would stay frozen to the ritual and routine that came before?

She had not hesitated to put herself between Elsa and the dread blade. But the courage required to face death in an instant was far different than the courage required to stare at the length and breadth of an empty and forsaken life.

Gerda was efficient as always. Soon a dinner tray appeared, heaped with all of Anna's favourite things. Anna washed her hands at the steaming basin Gerda provided, wiped her hands on the towel, and then sat to her lonely dinner, wishing with all her heart that things could be different.

Elsa had been on her way to the drawing room when a passing servant told her of Anna's real location. Elsa looked wistfully at the heaved wood of the corridor, the opening in the wall and window that was now boarded shut. So much damage she caused, and she was only peripherally aware of it, mired in the storm that always seemed to rage both without and within.

She followed the servant and smelled the most delectable aromas coming from the kitchen. She hastened even faster to the sitting room that was near the servant's quarters. This area of the castle was near the foundation, and seemed much more capable of handling the winter storm that she had cast upon it.

Elsa was only partway down the hallway when she noticed a servant escorting the Royal Physician to her. Sera Avundir seemed pleased to see the Queen, and gave Elsa a short bow before asking her to draw aside for conversation. "Should we join my sister for this conversation?" Elsa asked, but Sera shook her head.

"For your ears only, my queen, for the moment. Good miss, can you direct us to a nearby room?" The servant girl nodded and led them into a common area. Scrapes of chairs and rustles of cloth accompanied the rapid rise and genuflection of the guards and servants who were taking their ease by the fire or playing cards on low tables.

Elsa blushed as the servants and guards filed past her with a many _By your leave, your Majesty_, their faces quickly concealing the surprise they felt as she commandeered their recreation room. Soon enough they had cleared out entirely, leaving games in progress and the snapping of the fire. "We shall not be long," the physician said, surprising Elsa by taking her elbow and steering her into the room and into comfy chair by the fire. They heard the snick of the door closing behind them, and then Sera Avundir took her own seat on a chair diagonal from the queen.

All of this solicitude, and the perceived need for secrecy, caused klaxon bells of alarm to toll in Elsa's breast. She managed to remain circumspect and slightly regal as she leaned forward and asked, "You have finished your examination of my sister, Sera?"

"Yes, your Majesty." Then the good woman hesitated, and a wound of love and anxiety opened in Elsa's heart.

"Please, speak plainly, physician."

"Very well, your Majesty. I have examined the princess and found that she has survived her ordeal relatively unscathed. Her body and breath is strong, and she has always been blessed with a very active lifestyle and a strong spirit. However, I must admit I did detect a small irregularity with her heart rhythm that had not been present at her last examination."

The woman paused again and Elsa felt the oppressive tingle in her palms that preceded a release of her magic. She forced her breath into calmness and motioned for the woman to continue.

"I do not know yet the true cause of such a malady, or the long term effects it may have on Princess Anna's health. I do not wish to cause her any anxiety, which could lead to further heart palpitations, which is why I have chosen this discretion. I have not informed the Princess of this irregularity, and I'm unsure whether she should become aware of it at all. I will leave that decision with Your Majesty, for I know you have the Princess' best interests at heart."

A great dragon of pain and worry burst into existence along the length of Elsa's spine, his teeth the great ribs of her chest, and his glowing tongue an incessant flame deep near her heart.

"Surely… it is not fatal?" Elsa dared to breathe.

The Royal Physician straightened and shook her head quickly. "No, I don't believe so, your Majesty. It is a slight irregularity, and may not impact her life at all. For the time being, I would advise that Princess Anna get as much rest as she is able, and to eat plenty of fish and vegetables. I can't imagine that we could erase all the stress in her life, but for the next few weeks her stress level should be as low as possible. I would wish to examine her again, perhaps at monthly intervals, to keep apprised of her condition. Until then she should keep to her tasks and duties as is within her strength and willpower."

Elsa wilted back against the chair, the dragon softening inside her body. "I thank you, Sera, for all the service you have rendered my family."

The woman inclined her head graciously, and then looked carefully at the queen. "It has been my pleasure to serve the crown, both under your gracious father, the regency council, and of course, your Majesty herself."

One last moment of hesitation from the woman Elsa had only known as a rigid and somewhat authoritarian physician and surgeon who had served the family since before her birth, and Elsa wondered at the change within her. "Again, speak plainly, dear Sera," Elsa said, trying to keep all regal tones from her voice in order to hear what the physician really wanted to say.

"I… apologize, your Majesty. I've never been this long in your presence since the fever that took you after the death of your parents. I understand now the extra burdens that you carry, and the loyalty of your servants, Kai and Gerda. If you'll forgive my saying so, I wish to tell you the same thing I told Princess Anna earlier this evening."

Elsa remembered the illness that settled upon her after hearing the news of her parents' death. That was when Kai and Gerda learned the truth of her powers, and she had sworn them, and the physician, to secrecy. Even that small loss of control caused no end of anxiety for the young queen-to-be. She nodded for Sera to continue.

"I understand why Princess Anna would risk everything to save you," the woman quietly said, her voice nearly lost amid the popping and snapping of the flames. "I also understand that it was her act of sacrifice and love for you that brought her back to life. I can only imagine the turmoil that might exist in your heart, your Majesty, but please do not fret over the past. Your people will learn to love you, just the way you are. They will love you and respect you, just as I do."

The Royal Physician abruptly stood, and then curtsied with a deep genuflection rarely seen even among royalty, the hem of her dark robes pooling on the floor before she rose once again.

"If I may pass one last piece of advice, as a physician," she said, once again hefting the bag in her callused palm, "it would be that Anna needs a sister now, more than ever. You are freed from the secrets of the past. It may be that your presence is all the cure that is required."

"I thank you, Sera," Elsa finally said. "Thank you… for everything."

Elsa remained in the room several minutes after the woman departed, assimilating all the new knowledge she had gained. Should she tell Anna of her condition, the change in her heart rhythm? Or should she follow the advice of the physician, and keep such knowledge close?

The guilt of it remained.

_What have I done?_

It seemed the last piece of advice would be the wisest. Elsa would make her sister wait no longer.

**Song, "What I've Done" by Linkin Park.**


	2. Chapter 2 - Words Never Said

**Chapter Two – Words Never Said**

Elsa found the servant girl waiting a short distance away from the door to the common room. It sounded as if many of the servants and guards had decided to use the kitchen as their temporary place of entertainment and relaxation. "Your majesty?" the girl asked as she curtsied.

"Please, could you fetch me a tray for dinner and show me where Anna is resting? I would like all these good people to return to their amusements."

"At once, your majesty."

Elsa spent the next few moments deep in thought. The servant girl returned quickly with a tray of food and a bottle of wine. She followed the girl further down the hallway, pleased to hear the furtive footsteps of the exiles returning to their fire and games. The servant briskly knocked on the door to the far sitting room, which Gerda quickly opened.

"Your majesty," the woman said, dipping into a curtsy. She fluidly took the tray from the girl, shooed her from the room, and ushered Elsa into the drawing room.

Elsa had eyes only for the girl, no… Anna was most definitely a woman, and the most beautiful apparition Elsa had ever laid eyes upon. To see Anna rise, a delicate rosy blush on her cheeks, her smile breaking like a sunrise following a winter storm; the whole vision of the encounter caused Elsa's own heart to skip a beat. The news of Anna's infirmity, the slight irregular heart rhythm, Elsa could only contribute to her own misdeed, the horrifying moment of loss of control upon her ice palace, striking her dearest sister with shards of ice.

It was all her fault, but in this moment she could not even care, for Anna reached for her with such warm hands, that blazing smile on her face, and in the fire of Anna's devotion Elsa had no defence.

She reached out her own hands, and then abruptly drew Anna into a fierce embrace. The years fell from her, shuffling back and back like the riffling pages of a book, until they were only the dear sisters they had once been, able to touch, able to laugh, able to play. The beating of Anna's heart, so near her own, nearly cleaved her in two. She had achieved two illicit hugs today, each infinitely sweet and dear, but this moment erased even those blessed encounters from her mind.

For she could drink Anna in, and hold her as if the sun would never set, or the moon would never rise, as if time itself was arrested in this blessed reunion that was witnessed only by the most faithful among them all.

"Oh, Elsa," she heard once more, just as she had heard earlier upon the fjord, and her hands convulsed on Anna's shoulders, the anguish of her choices rising in her throat until she could barely see through eyes constricted with tears. The last thing she wished was to worry her sister, so she tried to banish that dread lump in her throat.

"Dearest Anna," she managed to say, and then, to her everlasting anguish, the embrace turned on its head; the comfort she had been trying to give to Anna returned on its course, and was given back to Elsa a hundred-fold. Her sister held her as if Elsa was the wounded one, the one plagued with illness whose fortune could not yet be seen. Anna held her, and whispered to her, and proved once again the sacrifice she had so boldly claimed earlier that very day.

"Ssh," Anna murmured, "it's all right. I'm here."

Yes, she was here, she was finally here, and tonight was the beginning of the rest of their lives. She had bought their futures with a terrible gamble, could she have even seen what the price might be?

Elsa could only imagine the courage that must have roared inside the young woman as she defied the prince, raising her hand against the killing blow.

"Why did you do it, Anna?" Elsa cried, the words escaping her mouth before she could rein them back in. "Why, oh why do you love me? All I've ever done is shut you out, and hurt you!"

From some distant part of her mind she could hear Gerda closing the door behind her, giving the grieving queen some privacy. She distantly marvelled at the loyalty of the staff, even as she clutched Anna even closer in her arms, one hand strong and fierce against Anna's slim waist.

To her surprise, Anna pulled away slightly from the hug. Her face was surprisingly serious. Elsa opened her mouth to protest, and her princess actually put her finger against Elsa's lips, silencing her.

"If you want to know, I will tell you, Elsa," Anna said, her face serious. "But to do so is to open the door on the past, and I don't want to do that to you unprepared. Would you rather just eat for now, and enjoy each other's company?"

It seemed there could be no containment to the swelling of Elsa's heart and soul. In every moment, in every word and deed Anna showed her quality, the stuff of legend and song. Her consideration for Elsa's feelings filled every crack and crevice of her body and soul with pride and wonder.

For the first time in the last thirteen years, Elsa allowed herself to look deeply into her sister's eyes. No more hiding behind closed doors. No more isolation on lone mountain peaks. No more storms. Despite Sera's assurances of vitality despite the irregularity of her sister's heart, Anna's health and future were now far too dear.

In response, Elsa pulled her sister over to the couch by the fire, and then sat down with her, side by side. "Please tell me, Anna," she whispered, holding her sister's hands tightly within her own, not able to give up that feeling of connection. "Tell me everything you've ever wished."

Now that the moment had come, Anna seemed unable to speak. She looked down on their conjoined hands, then over to the crackling fire, and only then back into Elsa's eyes.

Elsa's heart wept to see the desolation in those beautiful aquamarine eyes, the lead seas of despair that she seemed to swim in. The pain in those eyes was so near and dear it was like a knife to Elsa's breast.

"I was so wrong, Elsa," Anna said quietly, and the words were not what Elsa was expecting. With some effort she stayed silent and kept listening. "After I left you at the ice palace Kristoff took me to his friends, well, he called them his family, and they were trolls. They seemed to know exactly who I was, and who you were. His Grand Pabbie told me what would happen, that my life was in danger, that there was ice in my heart, put there by you. That, if not removed, to solid ice would I freeze, forever. I didn't want to believe him, and neither did Kristoff, but the troll said that only an act of true love would thaw a frozen heart."

Elsa's heart rocked to every word, hearing the story behind the frozen and lost time, the story behind Hans' lies.

"I was so cold, Elsa, and I couldn't really think straight. And then Kristoff said he had to get me back to Hans, that we could share a true love's kiss and all would be well, but even then I didn't really believe…."

Elsa felt every word as if they were darts to her skin, to sting her with endless remonstrance and shame, but Anna's great eyes were so open, so free, that Elsa fell into them, for they were great pools of life and memory, and Elsa wanted nothing more but to swim in the ocean of Anna's bliss for ever and ever.

"But then I returned, and told Hans to kiss me," and Elsa couldn't help the shudder that overcame her palms; Anna didn't seem to notice, and continued with, "but then he said, in an awful and infuriating tone, _'Oh, Anna, if only there was someone out there who loved you'_.

"He humiliated me, Elsa, he said I was so desperate for love that I would marry him just like that. Then he said that all there was left to do was to kill you, bring back summer, and gain your throne."

A little whimper escaped Elsa's throat before she could bring it to submission, her entire person seething at the audacity of the prince and in fear for her princess, even though her sister was right before her, right now, relatively whole and safe.

"And I told him that he was no match for you," Anna continued, a note of pride in her voice that nearly undid the quivering queen. All she could do was swallow conspicuously and nod for her sister to continue. "That he wouldn't get away with this. He just laughed at me, and locked me in the room, and left me for dead."

Elsa couldn't help the tear that sparked in her eyes, filling in the blanks between her own awful encounters with the Prince of the Southern Isles. She shuddered for her lost princess, and listened to the remainder of the story, how Olaf had suddenly and unexpectedly come to Anna's rescue, how Olaf had made Anna believe that Kristoff loved her, and how the both of them escaped the castle while the storm continued to rip it apart.

"I was so cold, Elsa," she murmured, drawing Elsa's cool hands even closer to her own heart. "I have never been that cold in my life. I looked down at my palms, and saw the frost erupt on them, tracing snowflakes on my hands. I whispered Kristoff's name, hoping he could hear me."

Elsa could not help it then; she stifled yet another sob and looked away, into the embers of the fire that glowed all white and warm, staving off the chill of the summer night.

Anna yet again rose with all the glory and fire of a phoenix. Her warm voice climbed out of the ashes of the fire, and her warm hands breathed upon Elsa's own, causing a convulsive shudder to overtake her limbs.

"Elsa, dearest Elsa," she whispered into the queen's cool palms, and her breath on her skin was like a blazing aurora, like the summer's dawn, like the warmth and deliciousness of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and just as beloved.

Then with one hand she reached up, and touched Elsa's cheek, and Elsa melted into those warm and beloved fingers. She could not break her gaze with Anna's eyes, could not sever this connection that was the first in so many years. This connection, forged of courage and bound by truth, this connection was the very beating of Elsa's heart, the depth of magic in her bones, the source of all life and beauty. She was bound to Anna's words, just as she was bound to the blood rushing through Anna's veins, the blood that surged through an altered heart.

"You ask why I love you, Elsa?" Anna murmured, scooting closer to Elsa on the little couch, invading every part of Elsa's space, and Elsa was powerless to resist it, powerless against the majesty and awe of Princess Anna's words and devotion. "I love you because… because…"

And her little sister could not say it, but it did not matter, no it didn't, for every word and action was testament already to Elsa's heart and soul. Elsa could not help but gather her broken little sister into her arms, to cradle her close, and murmur soft words into the crown of her head. She opened her body and her arms to her dearest heart, and Anna came inside them, finally Anna was here with her, and the touch and breath of her caused Elsa's heart to hiccup in wonder and fascination.

She cradled her close, tucked so very near her own heart and breast, and Anna's hands were tight on her arms, pulling them tight as a cocoon about her, tight as the wings of a bird terrified to learn to fly.

Elsa stroked Anna's hair, such fire and redness, stroked it again and again and kissed the fiery crown of Anna's head. "Shush, my darling," she cooed. "I'm here. I'm never going to leave you, never."

Her sister's hands seemed to convulse on her as if mystified at Elsa's words. For her reply Elsa opened her heart and body even wider, enveloping Anna as if she could bear her to the bright space beside her heart, there to dwell in peace and love for all eternity.

Long and glorious minutes passed, breaths a synchrony of delight and devotion, hearts in wonder. Anna's hands stilled their frenzy, and she snuggled as deep and complete as was possible for two people who dwelled in separate bodies.

Only then did Elsa realize that Anna had fallen asleep.

Only then did she realize the depth of Hans' betrayal, the turmoil that must have clenched her dear sister's heart. To sacrifice it all for Elsa's sake, giving up every future she had ever dreamed; the enormity of the act once again hewed Elsa's heart.

It was enough for now to hold the dear girl; to feel the heart beat that was ever so slightly different due to Elsa's magic. It was enough to be so close, hand to hand, heart to heart, breath to bated breath.

And a great _tide_ shifted within Queen Elsa in that moment, a movement of land and sea, so deep as to be nearly indiscernible, but in the wake of such titanic movement she could only hazard a guess that _everything, yes everything _had changed.

And Elsa mourned all the time unspent, the words unsaid. An ocean of regret, enough for her to drown in, awake and kicking.

A shiver of true fear severed muscle from bone.

Would she spend the future the same way? Drowning in regrets, never able to take back words she never said? Could she finally be the sister that Anna deserved? Or would her words fall on dead ears, a heart arrhythmia so perplexing as to be Elsa's fault alone, she had frozen, _yes frozen!_ her sister's dear heart, and there were no shadows or ghosts now to listen to Elsa's cries of protest or recrimination. There was only this sweet person in her arms and a future stark and clear.

_It may be that your presence is all the cure that is required._

Elsa brought back the physician's words to her disturbed mind, and only then did she soothe her own troubled heart.

This was no time to worry about such things. Not when Anna was here, asleep in her arms.

So Anna slept on, and Elsa held her, and the night crawled towards that barely discernible halt in the wee hours of the morning, the coals of the fire a dull and constant red.

* * *

><p><strong>Song: Words Never Said by Skylar Grey<strong>

I hope you have enjoyed the first two chapters, and that I have you hooked! I'll be posting new chapters every Sunday evening from now until the story is done. ~ Jen


	3. Chapter 3 - Second Chance

**Chapter Three – Sometimes Goodbye is a Second Chance**

Several hours passed before Gerda herself again returned, to check on her royal charges and refresh the room, if needed. Elsa happened to be facing the doorway, so when the light knock and bustling hips came through the door, she was able to smile in invitation to the serving woman.

Gerda seemed to take in the entire scene with the aplomb so necessary in serving royalty and hustled towards the couch first of all. "If you like, your Majesty, I could have one of the guards come to carry Anna to her chambers," Gerda offered. "Then you could both get some real sleep." She managed a slightly stern look, which ended up completely flubbed by the way her eyes were shining at looking at the girls lying together on the couch.

Elsa looked down at the sleeping sister in her arms. Anna's head was pillowed on her breast, her arm loose and warm at Elsa's waist, and she slept in the stillness and oblivion that only comes to the truly exhausted. While Elsa was sure that the sleep she would get in her own room would be a hundred times more restful, it couldn't provide this soul-balm to her heart, so she gently shook her head. "Until she wakes on her own, whether in be in an hour or in the morning, I'll remain with her here, Gerda."

Gerda nodded and bustled past Elsa's sight, and a few moments later an exclamatory sigh came from her. "Princess Anna didn't eat much, but you didn't eat anything, Your Majesty."

Elsa considered a regal response of distance and tact, but decided upon truth instead. "To be honest, Gerda, I just never got to it."

"I'd offer to bring you a sandwich for you to eat while you sit with the princess, but I'm afraid you'll just refuse."

A slight swell of indignation crested inside Elsa's mouth at Gerda's words and she nearly said she would take the sandwich, thank you very much! Then a moment of clarity, and a small moue of respect for the woman who could so neatly handle royalty. Like handling children, perhaps? "Thank you for the offer, but I don't want to disturb her. I'll just eat a good breakfast in the morning."

Gerda came back into sight with several oddly shaped pillows and a throw blanket. "Now, I don't want you to be all sore when you wake up, so is there any way I can prop you up with these pillows to make your rest better?" Elsa nodded, and the next few moments of shuffling were done in comical silence, trying not to disturb Anna's slumber, and finally the slight pull on her back was eased, and there was a pillow for her own head. Gerda tucked them both in with the blanket, curtsied once again with her eyes shining so clear and bright in the renewed fire, such loyalty and compassion that Elsa could scarcely look at her, and then closed the door behind her once again.

Anna hadn't woken during the softly executed scramble, but she had tightened her grip briefly and expelled a hushed, "Mmmm – don't…. no go way." Elsa lightly stroked Anna's hair, and decided to gently and carefully pick out her two braids. She ran her cool hands into the soft mass that was Anna's fiery hair, noticing the slow burn of wonder deep in her chest as she did so.

It was every moment like this that she regretted and missed, every sisterly moment stolen from them in the long ache of past years. This time she spent no more thought on regret, but instead began to visualize what life might be like with Anna in it. The imagination came somewhat easily, as all she had to do was resurrect the ghosts of dreams past, and there were a million of them stuffed into the corners of her bedroom, and summon them down here into her presence.

There had been hours of study and tutelage, of course, and books and reports she had to read, letters and scrolls she had to write, the duties of a queen to learn, but there had also been too many hours of idleness and isolation. She had populated those hours with endless suppositions on Anna's whereabouts and activities.

So, what to do with a little sister who was suddenly allowed to be in her life? And the nicest twist of all, one she barely dared imagine in those ancient daydreams of the past, was how could she continue to use and refine her powers, now that she now longer had to conceal them?

Skating. Oh yes.

They had whirled on an ice floor conjured into being in the ballroom that fateful night. No better way to ease some of her guilt and release her bad memories than to replace them with new encounters, more precious and delicious because of the bitterness of the past. Elsa did not know if Anna had learned to skate in the intervening years, but it would be wondrous to find out.

Maybe even another ball, and she could watch her sister dance. A constricting fist squeezed Elsa's stomach at the thought of another usurper like Hans daring to try his wiles on her princess. A ball wasn't such a good idea, after all. She had only just reunited with her sister, and she would not see Anna married off and away from her for a while yet.

A party, perhaps, with just their favourite people? It appeared that Anna had some sort of connection with that young man, Kristoff. And Olaf would dearly love a party, Elsa was certain. Perhaps a glorious stall and a huge supply of carrots for the reindeer that seemed linked to the young man.

The fire settled in a small flurry of sparks, winking in and out of existence. Elsa felt extremely comfortable just now, despite the heavy Anna-shaped bolster upon her body and legs. Her own exhaustion began to take hold, dipping her eyelashes in cement. Sleep claimed her.

For the longest time, she was aware of nothing within her slumber. But then swirls of colour and light appeared, and before she even knew that she was dreaming, she was again reliving the moments of the day.

But this time the snow assaulted her, as sheer weight upon her skin and her heart. She had never been bothered by the cold before, and she had always known it was a by-product of her magical powers. Now the cold was insidious, and it was marching from the center of her chest in an organized assault on the rest of her body, like endless ranks of soldiers and cavalry, each dipped in a liquid bath of arctic frost and set upon their course through her veins.

She saw her hands on the icy sea, and recognized the suddenly static flakes of snow, hanging near motionless in the air.

Hans was behind her, and he was glee-felt in his words though they had been delivered with much gravity

_(Your sister is dead, because of you!)_

and the sword would come now, and just as before she would welcome it, and pray for the gods to speed her to the afterlife, so that she could finally bask in the glow of family without fear of hurting them. Anna was dead; she was in her parents' care once more, and the only good thing to come of all this would be the sword descending upon her flesh just now. Once reunited with her sister in heaven, she could apologize a million times over for causing her death, for being so very wrong in all her choices.

Oh yes, the sword would be welcome indeed.

_Dearest, I come!_

But even this last and greatest fervent wish of her heart would also be denied, and Hans' laughter pressed into her ears, her eyes, even her nose and mouth, his mirth forcing its way inside her, taking even the small heart of courage she felt she always had, taking it by force as no man had ever dared before.

Then there was the clang of his sword against the ice, his boots walking away, leaving the Ice Queen bereft and weeping against the frozen seas of the fjord. Alone, more completely and utterly alone than she could ever imagine.

And just beyond, a scant distance away upon the frozen desolation of her kingdom, Elsa beheld the ice statue that had once been her sister.

She crawled to her over needles of ice, and joined the stricken unnamed young man in a great lamentation, her tears freezing to Anna's ice feet. Oh, her heart burned in guilt and the most exquisite sadness, but even in the act of mourning she was to be denied.

This was goodbye, and there were no second chances.

The Royal Guard had come for her, and pulled her away, limp and bereft of every spark of life and hope. Her heart had been frozen with the final exhalation of her dead sister. There was to be no mercy even then, for they only imprisoned her once again in a tiny cell deep under the keep.

And there she languished, shackled in a dungeon struck endlessly with ice and snow, and there was no opportunity to escape now, for with each attempt she was always captured, always beaten, always returned to the horrible room that became her entire world. King Hans would have it no other way; he would prove her villainy again and again.

With the passing months came little hope and cheer, the food increasingly impoverished, gaunt faces etched with hunger whenever she encountered her captors, and the day finally came when no guards checked on her, when no food was provided, no water, and in the concussive kraaak-booms that shook the very foundation of the palace her family had held in trust for generations she knew that the kingdom itself had frozen over entirely, and was collapsing in great rending cries all about her.

She imagined the crystal statue of her sister disintegrating under the weight of snow, to collapse and be dispersed to the ravenous winds!

And though she escaped the keep to wander the unrecognizable woods, hunger became her only remaining jailer, and she had never known that the body could feed on itself so assiduously at the very end of all things, every organ crumpling under the pressure, until there was indeed nothing left except a life that would not end, a spirit that would not cease, and the once-Queen Elsa of Arendelle transformed into a wraith, vengeful and cruel, flitting between the worlds and lives of the leaves of the great tree Yggdrasil, hunting down those who had caused harm to her.

Queen Elsa languished so deeply within the foul dream that she was powerless to wake and realize that she only slept. Her sleeping mind was trapped in its filth, its putrescence.

Only when the wraith that had once been her own proud and courageous soul eventually hunted down yet another incarnation of Hans, to confront him with claws of pestilence and tear strips of his flesh from his body, bathing herself in his blood, did Elsa finally snap to consciousness. The shock of waking was like an avalanche of tearing boulders and fearsome snow, the weight of it enough to suffocate her and quench the spark of her very life.

Anna's face was inches from hers; her eyes were wide in shock and fright, and Elsa could only feel that infernal wrath still curling inside her, a rage that could ignite every volcano from here to the Rings of Fire in far off lands.

"Elsa, shhh, please, you're dreaming, come back sweetheart, it's over, it's just a dream. I'm here, Elsa, please…."

Elsa fought back the urge to claw this wretched creature to bits, and only as Anna placed her warm fingers on Elsa's cheeks did Elsa finally wrench herself away from the corruption and filth of the dream that had captured her. Years had passed in the dream-state; Anna had been dead for so very long that Elsa could barely recognize her now in the flesh.

"Anna?"

"Yes, dearest heart."

"You're alive?"

Such a great skew of emotion on Anna's face, the most complex look Elsa had ever yet encountered on her younger sister. It was a glorious mix of sadness and elation, concern and devotion. "Yes, Elsa," Anna replied. "I'm here, and I'm alive. Sssh, it was only a dream, come back to me, okay?"

Then her sister planted the most soft and gentle kiss upon Elsa's cheek, and it burned, how it burned in the crater of Elsa's heart!

Elsa practically launched herself into Anna's arms, subconsciously mirroring the pose of earlier this day out on the frozen fjord, hanging from Anna's shoulders with her head over Anna's heart. It was miraculous and true; this was no sculpture of ice and snow, no frozen statue, this was Anna, her only surviving relative, with breath and blood and spirit and soul. She clung to her sister, trying to banish the hateful images from her mind, that awful future that could have been. She tried to quench the horrifying final images, the evidence of the villain that she had become.

Anna's arms were so strong, and they held Elsa so very tight. In this moment there were no longer any murmurs, no stroking or petting. Anna was the rock, the touchstone, the very foundation of goodness and beauty, and she held Elsa with the deepest presence and intention, anchoring her with love and fierce devotion. She was silent and she was motionless, and Elsa could feel the steadfast reality of her sister's palms, her fingers, and she wondered, oh she wondered at the intuition of this dearest girl, to so clearly focus Elsa with such subtlety and intent.

For upon this rock, this foundation, Elsa built herself up again. Strengthened by Anna's immense physicality Elsa was able to bring up the images of horror she had experienced in her dream and vanquish them, one by one, until they had no more weight than snow.

Finally Elsa had the strength to sit back up, to wipe away the tears that had gathered and formed wet spots on Anna's dress. "Thank you," she said simply.

"Don't mention it," Anna replied glibly. "It feels good to give something back to you."

"Anna, you have given me everything. Don't you realize what you have done? Should I live a thousand years and grant you a thousand favours, I could never repay the debt that I owe to you."

"There is no debt, Elsa. Don't you understand?" That strange depth was again upon Anna's face, and Elsa could only be enchanted by it. Anna grabbed Elsa's hands, and clasped them near her heart. "I need you to understand this, Elsa. I don't want you to feel like you owe me anything. I did what I did because I love you. I couldn't bear to see you killed. I would have died before losing you again."

Elsa held fast to the beloved words. "Perhaps I should save my fury and vengeance for Hans?" Elsa quipped, hoping to dispel the seriousness of Anna's face.

Her sister could not be so easily diverted. "You do not owe me vengeance, Elsa. If anything, you owe me happiness," she growled.

The sentence struck Elsa as if with darts.

"When did you become so much older than me?" Elsa whispered.

Anna finally smiled, and the beauty of it was another remembrance cast in gold and placed in the vault of Elsa's memory. "Perish the thought!" Anna replied. "You are the old one, while I will be young and beautiful forever."

Elsa laughed with her, and wiped away the last of her tears. For a time she simply looked at Anna, anchoring herself in time and place. Then she glanced at the clock above the mantelpiece.

"The physician ordered me to make sure that you ate enough, Anna," Elsa said. "Would you like to eat anything before I get you off to bed?"

There was a strange and thoroughly bewitching blush on Anna's cheeks, which Elsa simply could not interpret. "That's all right, Elsa," Anna said, also glancing up at the clock. "There's only a few more hours until dawn. Would… should we sleep here or get up to our own beds?"

As much as Elsa yearned to hold her younger sister in her arms, rock her to sleep and sing her a lullaby, Elsa remembered the counsel of the physician.

"Let's get you to bed, silly head," she said, urging Anna upwards with a hand to her elbow. It was nearly four o'clock in the morning, and there was time yet for the restful sleep necessary to rulers and unruly children.

She urged Anna onwards, and her sleep-sodden sister reluctantly acquiesced. Elsa would not relinquish her arm, and they walked arm in arm with their hips swaying in tune down the hallway and back into the more familiar parts of the castle. Anna stayed quiet and sleepy as Elsa guided her back to her room. Her sister almost seemed surprised when they finally alighted upon Anna's door.

There was an empty room between the two bedchambers of Queen and Princess. Once upon a time they had shared a bedroom, but that had ended that fateful day, along with everything else that had been good and warm in Elsa's life. The King's orders of separation and concealment had been personified in that abominably empty room that stood between their bedroom doors.

There was no end to the pleasure that stormed Elsa's heart as she escorted her sister back into her bedroom. She wanted so much to see the story of Anna's life as witnessed upon the decorations and the walls, but she managed to stay the course, directing Anna to her bed. She drew down the covers and sat Anna down.

Only as she gently pushed Anna into her sleeping place did the princess seem to wake up slightly once more. "Elsa, please. Don't leave me," she murmured, holding Elsa's hand close to her heart.

There was nothing she would deny her sister. Not if she would live a thousand years and grant a thousand favours. Directed by the heart-deep wish of Anna's soul, Elsa crawled into bed beside her. She could not be surprised that Anna pulled her arm over her stomach, and wriggled her back most fulsomely into Elsa's front.

Only when the soft snores began did Elsa gently kiss the nape of her sister's neck, that great dragon of worry now conquered by love in her breast. "Thank you, Anna," she murmured. "Thank you for my second chance."

There could be no bedding nor cocoon more glorious than the simple blankets that enveloped them. Even in the face of all her worries, Elsa could not evade sleep, and she drifted into a peaceful oblivion while holding her Princess.

* * *

><p>This update is a bit early, but I have the day off today, so I thought I'd share it!<p>

The title song is "Second Chance" by Shinedown. Seriously awesome song, be sure to check it out.


	4. Chapter 4 - Stay

**Chapter Four - Stay**

The morning sun was diffuse through the windowpanes of Anna's bedroom. The softness of the light upon the Princess' eyelids was the first indication of wakefulness. The next was the rather abrupt knock on the door.

"Princess Anna?" the voice asked.

For goodness sake, couldn't they just let her sleep? Anna yawned and rose slightly from her bed. "Who is it?" she asked, the name of her steward escaping her for just a wee little second.

"Just me, madam. Time to get up and get dressed."

"No, no. Don't worry, I've been awake for hours," she murmured, and then the memories actually returned to her. She whirled about in her bed, seeking the person who should have been there, but there were only rumpled bedsheets and a spare pillow.

Did she only dream what had happened the night before?

"Elsa?" she murmured, her hands to her wild and unruly hair. She had the dimmest recollection of being led to her chamber by her older sister, and Elsa had actually lain down right beside her. She blushed even as she scoured the emptiness of her room. There was no one in sight.

"Excuse me, madam?" came the ultra-familiar voice of her most loyal Steward, Kai. She could nearly fold the last few days into a small package and believe that today would be the same as all the others. She very much remembered four days ago when Kai had woken her with the reminder of Elsa's coronation.

She brushed back her unruly hair and said in a voice much more regal and hopefully Princessy, "I'm awake, Kai, thank you. Do I have any appointments?"

"Your sister, Queen Elsa, bids you join her for brunch in the small common area near the kitchens," came the reply.

Brunch?

Anna's gaze quickly found the clock and determined that yes indeed, it was time for brunch. And Elsa was expecting her.

Wait, what?

"Elsa, wait, I mean… Queen Elsa wishes to see me for brunch?" Anna asked.

"Yes, your highness. Time to get dressed!"

Anna practically catapulted from her bed and to the wardrobe. She could hear Kai's low chuckle outside the door, fading as he moved away from her door.

What to wear, what to wear?

No, too ordinary. Too boring. Too… last year. Wasn't there anything in here that could even remotely resemble the far and exquisite beauty of her older sister?

No, no no. Just the same dresses, whether bearing ornaments of flying leopards or frozen butterflies, or patterns of their Norse heritage, or composed of the most calming shades of green and blue, oh such cerulean blue, like a summer breeze! Anna pulled down a summer dress of varying shades of blue. If she knew anything about her sister at all, it was that blue was her favourite colour.

Wait, was blue Elsa's favourite colour? Or should Anna wear her accustomed green? Maybe some purple, that was for royalty, wasn't it?

Flying into the blue dress with the assistance of a summoned servant to help her with the laces, Anna finally stood before a large mirror, gazing with exasperation at the image betrayed in the flawless and polished steel.

She didn't have a streak of white in her hair anymore. And she missed it. Pigtails again? What was she, fourteen? Wouldn't she ever grow up?

Anna couldn't wait to find out. She had her hair plaited into those habitual braids, smoothed her dress one last time, and then took off like a shot out of her bedroom door.

There were workmen swarming every hallway and room, bringing order back to frost-tangled timbers. Anna chewed her lower lip as she passed by them, unaware until that point of just how much damage there was.

She smoothed out her hair and straightened her blue dress one last time as she neared the little room they had used the previous evening. She was surprised to find that she was almost nervous about seeing Elsa again, wondering what incarnation of the Queen she would encounter: friend, sister, ruler?

She burst into the room and quenched her fears with one look. Yes, Elsa was every inch a queen, though she bore no tiara upon her head, but the open and giving smile was every inch a sister, a smile that rapidly turned into a grin. "I'm sorry to have woken you," Elsa said, rising from her place near the swept fireplace, setting down a sheaf of papers, "but I was getting really hungry and didn't want to eat without you. I hope you don't mind."

Anna practically bounced towards her, taking her hands and squeezing them. "No, I don't mind," she replied, "and I'm really glad that you waited to eat with me."

Elsa's look became impossibly complex and endearing, and she openly stared at Anna so long that Anna said, "What's wrong? Do I look okay? Did I miss something?"

Anna dropped her hands to look down at her dress, which had an intricate laced bodice that tapered to her slim waist, and the colour gradation of blue from her hips to her ankles went from that sky-blue cerulean to near indigo.

Elsa cleared her throat and said, "You look… amazing. Simply. Amazing."

There seemed to be some strange depth in Elsa's eyes, some extra catch to her voice, and Anna blushed to hear the sentiment so fervently given. At that moment, the servants knocked and bustled into the room, bearing several trays of food and drink.

"C'mon, Elsa. Let's eat." Anna grabbed her sister's hand and escorted her to the little table in the corner. It was just big enough to hold two rather ornate place settings and a small horde of delectables. There was soured milk and muesli, crispbreads and caviar, hot porridge with honey and small pots of lingonberry jam. There was coffee, hot cocoa and cloudberry tea.

Anna was suddenly and dizzyingly aware that this was the first meal she had shared with Elsa in many years. The simple joy of it inflated her chest like a balloon. Anna tucked into the meal with non-surprising gusto, often looking at Elsa's plate to see how and what Elsa ate. She was gleeful to discover the same passion for caviar and crispbread, and the same indulgence for jam on porridge. In fact, the only difference in their tastes so far was Elsa's fondness for coffee and Anna's addiction to hot chocolate.

After the keen edge of her hunger had been dulled slightly with the wholesome food, Anna filled her plate again and asked, "So what are you up to today, Elsa?"

Elsa finished chewing a mouthful of food, took a sip of coffee, and replied, "More meetings to start with. The inquiry regarding Prince Hans will be held this afternoon. I still have that Duke of Weaseltown to deal with." After another sip of coffee she asked, "What about you, Anna, what are you doing today?"

"Well, I did manage to completely destroy Kristoff's sled and all his belongings, so I'm going to look into a replacement. I think I've got enough money saved up for it."

"You may draw from the treasury if needed, Anna," Elsa said. "From your account, Kristoff helped save all of us." She took another sip of coffee and asked, a mischievous smile on her face, "Though could you enlighten me with the story of how you managed to completely destroy his sled and all his belongings? I mean, I hear you are rough on suits of armour, but a whole sled?"

Anna stuck out her tongue at Elsa as she swirled another spoon of jam into her hot porridge. She took a bite before saying, "I kinda sorta lost my horse while I was out looking for you. I made it to Oaken's place to get some winter gear and met Kristoff there. He said that the snow seemed to be coming from the North Mountain. And seeing as he knew where to go, and how to get there, I asked him to take me there. He refused at first, but I managed to bribe him with some ropes and supplies and then some carrots for Sven."

Another bite of food and sip of hot cocoa, and Anna continued, delighted to have such a captive audience for her story. "So we headed away from Oaken's place, and I told him how this was essentially all my fault, because I got engaged to someone I just met, and then said unkind words to you and stole your glove…" and Anna looked quickly at Elsa's face to see the reaction to her words.

For a wonder, Elsa stayed warm and present, no story of guilt written upon her face. "You said honest words, Anna, but go on."

Emboldened, Anna said, "Well then we started arguing about strangers and true love and whether princes pick their noses… yes, it was a very interesting conversation, and maybe you had to have been there to really understand why something like that would have come up, but then we were attacked by wolves."

Elsa sputtered and set down her cup rather forcefully. "Wolves?" she asked.

"Yeah, just a few. Maybe half a dozen. Maybe more. I was a bit busy, so I didn't actually count. And Kristoff said he didn't trust my judgment, because who gets engaged to someone they just met that day, but I told him it was true love and saved him by smashing his lute into one wolf that jumped onto the sled. So yeah, the lute was the first casualty, and then I had to set one of his bedrolls on fire and throw it at another one, and everything probably would have been fine, I mean, I had things completely under control, but then there was this big ravine right in front of us, and Sven was heading right for it."

Elsa's hand was up, covering her mouth in shock, and Anna barrelled on, saying, "So Kristoff threw me on Sven's back and cut the lines to the sled, and we all leaped over the ravine, but of course the sled was a goner, and poor Kristoff had just paid it off. And it's a good thing I can think fast on my feet, Elsa, because Kristoff didn't have a very good grip when he landed on our side, and he began to slide off the edge of the cliff, but I managed to throw him a pick and rope and hauled his ass out of trouble."

Elsa's eyes widened, and Anna clapped her hands over her mouth in shock. "Oh my. I did not just say ass as part of polite breakfast conversation with the Queen."

To her surprise, Elsa began to chuckle, and then laugh outright, even as great measures of love and anxiety poured out of her eyes. Anna joined in the mirth, even to the point of snorting lightly over her now empty plate.

"All right, then," Elsa said, finally getting herself under control again. "I believe that you and I have a great deal to catch up on, Anna, though the state of prince's noses is probably not a topic we need to discuss. And yes, you definitely need to replace Kristoff's sled. What exactly does he do for a living?"

"He's an ice harvester."

"Wow, that would be a rough business to be in just then," Elsa mused, laughter underlining her words.

"That's just what I said!" Anna crowed. "So yes, I'll do some shopping and see about getting everything replaced. This afternoon I have my tutor for a few hours as well, and then I have a session with the Armsmaster to schedule as well."

"Armsmaster?" Elsa asked.

"Oh yeah, I've been training in blade work for the past few years. I mean, I started with archery because for some reason the Captain couldn't see me with a sword, but I finally got my blade about a year ago."

"You… have a blade?"

Anna smiled at the genuine love and concern in Elsa's face and words, a vast and chewy joy still invading every part of her being. "Papa was worried about my excess energy, and once he found I had no patience for artistic pursuits, seriously, Elsa, they gave me embroidery, threads and needles and all! Proper ladies embroider, apparently, but I've never really been a right proper lady, so he had me start working with the Captain and the Royal Guard. I really like it, Elsa. And it was the only thing that kept me going after… you know, after they died."

She was watching Elsa's face rather carefully, looking for any hint of guilt, which she would pummel into the ground; Elsa had enough guilt and shame for a lifetime and Anna wasn't going to stand for it any longer. For a wonder, Elsa only smiled wistfully and put her napkin on her plate. "Could I… come watch you practice sometime?" Elsa asked.

Of the million possible responses Elsa could have come up with, Anna expected this one the least. She choked over a last bite of crispbread and spluttered, "You want to watch me practice the blades?"

"Only if you want me to. I mean, it's your choice." Elsa's voice cracked on the words in some expression of feeling Anna couldn't quite comprehend.

Anna thought of her normally clumsy nature and glumly realized that the day Elsa would watch her would be the day that she flubbed every form. Yet she had no desire to shut the door on this desire, so she squeaked, "Y-yes, you certainly can. Just warn me first, all right? I'll be sure to have the surgeon on standby." Anna also put her napkin on her plate, and then paused. "Speaking of which, Elsa, was there anything wrong? When Sera spoke to you, I mean. She had… a funny look on her face."

A funny look was also displayed on Elsa's face, followed by a decisive gritting of her teeth and jaw. The hesitation lasted just long enough for a tinge of anxiety to cloud Anna's heart, making it sputter and heave. "As a matter of fact, Anna, yes, there is something wrong." Anna's heart fell as much at the tone of Elsa's voice as at the words she spoke. Elsa seemed… divided, uncertain, but she continued nonetheless. "Sera discovered a slight irregularity in your heart rhythm. It's not serious, and it's certainly not life-threatening, but it is something she wants to monitor and track. She advised plenty of food and rest, and for you to be kept stress free as much as possible. I'm sorry, Anna, she just wasn't sure what to tell you, and left it to me to decide."

Anna swallowed as the new reality trickled into her consciousness. An irregular heart rhythm. Well, then. At least Elsa didn't keep it secret, like she could have.

Their eyes collided over the breakfast table, and Anna could only nod and whisper, "Thank you, Elsa, for telling me the truth. I… don't like secrets very much."

Elsa quickly rose from her chair and came to kneel at Anna's side. Anna was surprised by the sudden movement, and put her hands on the arm of her chair so she could twist and face her sister. Elsa's cool fingers rested on top of her own, lightly squeezing. "I swear to you, Anna, here and now, that you will always get my truth. I swear it upon my head and crown."

Anna gulped over the lump that formed in her throat, the proximity of her sister intoxicating, the oath sudden and precious. She lifted Elsa's hands so that she could wrap them in her own, and she replied, "And I swear to you, Elsa, that I will also tell you the truth."

She was astonished to see and feel Elsa bring her hands to her lips, to coolly kiss the back of each of Anna's hands. It felt like both frost and fire, and a great pit of strange yearning opened up deep inside, startling for both its truth and beauty. For a boundless and vast moment she imagined a similar kiss, this time to her own mouth, and though she fought the thought with blades of taboo, she could not vanquish it entirely.

It was just too damn enticing.

But wrong, so wrong!

Anna wrestled herself back into the present moment with some effort, rubbed her thumbs over Elsa's hands, and finally smiled. It was the release they had both been waiting for, and Elsa smiled at her sister before rising from her kneeling position. "I'm sorry, Anna, I need to get back to work now. Thank you for having brunch with me."

Anna patted her mouth one last time with her napkin as she rose from the table. "That's fine, Elsa. There's lots to do. Thank you for eating with me. It was… so nice." Unspoken were the words that she had said the night of Elsa's coronation, I wish it could be like this all the time. She didn't want to risk saying them and get the same response as she did before.

Elsa seemed oblivious to this last specter of Anna's worry, for she briefly clasped Anna's arm, smiling warmly, and then she gathered her sheaf of papers and left the room.

Anna didn't linger, for the room was strangely bereft with her sister's absence. Besides, there really was a lot to do. She left the room at a slower pace, somewhat mired in thought.

The cool tingle on her hands remained.

As did her irregular heart rhythm.

* * *

><p>Wolves.<p>

Anna was nearly savaged by wolves.

Elsa strode down the hallway in heels that hit the floor like hammers on wolf pelts; her pace so fast it was nearly a jog. She couldn't know it, but her face was so grim and her seeming charge down corridors so savage that workmen and servants bowed as they hastily got out of her way. Only as she emerged on the upper floor where her study had been swiftly restored did she slow down somewhat and rein in both her thoughts and her heels.

They certainly had a debt to pay for the young man. Elsa couldn't help but wonder what feelings Anna held for Kristoff, though surely she shouldn't have to wonder much. Anna had told her outright that she had been on her way to kiss Kristoff and hopefully break the spell when she had encountered her sister waiting for Hans to strike her with a blade.

The constriction of loss wrung out her heart once more, accompanied with a sharp jab of jealousy and longing that Elsa could not believe she felt. What had she to be jealous of? Of course Anna would fall in love someday, and Elsa knew that there would be no shortage of potential suitors, that is, if men still had eyes in their heads to recognize her beauty and stamina to match Anna's impulsiveness.

_I just want her to stay._

_Stay with me._

Satisfied for the moment, though she vowed to investigate her strange feelings later on, Elsa turned into her study. It still held so much of the character and bearing of her royal father, for she had been loathe changing it up to this point. In looking at the dark wood of bookshelves, the busts of previous rulers, ancient instruments of land and sea, Elsa realized that she could renovate all this. Really, she could. She was the Queen of Arendelle now, and if she was to have any joy at all in her duty, then she might as well start with pleasant surroundings.

She had been at work for about an hour when the knock came outside her open door. She glanced up and recognized Ser Ostven and the Bishop, the two highest ranking members of the regency council who had helped to govern Arendelle in the years between crowns.

"Gentlemen, please, come in," she said, rising in respect and directing them all to take seats by the wide and bright windows. It was turning into a gorgeous summer day, and it wouldn't be long before the brief summer heat would drive away many denizens from the castle and village, seeking the cottages and refuges of forest and mountain.

The talk quickly turned to the disposition of the ships, an accounting of those that had been wrecked and sunk, and a quick tally of damages throughout the village. Elsa felt the frost creeping into her palms from time to time, but she had her antidote now, for all she had to do was bring Anna's face to her mind and the magic receded, placated.

She even had a couple moments of cleverness and wit, hoping that these men would accept her in truth as their ruler, and trust her with the affairs of the kingdom, even though she had proven so very untrustworthy. It seemed that she was succeeding in this regard, for even the Bishop begrudgingly acknowledged that her understanding of the disruption of trade and the expenses incurred during the disaster was cogent and succinct.

"Now, regarding Prince Hans of the Southern Isles," Ser Ostven finally began. Elsa nodded for him to continue. "He has been placed under constant guard in a comfortable room as befitting his status and rank, and has given testimony witnessed by the Chancellor and two others in certain facts of the last few days. He admitted to deception when he claimed that he and Anna had exchanged wedding vows before pronouncing her dead, which had become his claim to the throne, and he apologized, quite profusely, for charging you with treason and sentencing you to death. Oh, and also for attempting to mete out the sentence by his own hand."

Inside her mind Elsa was livid. The base treachery of this man, to achieve his ends by any means necessary! Outwardly the temperature of the room dropped several degrees, and she said, "Thankfully my sister did not die, and due to her bravery, neither did I. His… excuses for his behaviour have no basis in fact. While we could force him to stand trial for his actions I do not wish for strained relations with the rest of the Southern Isles. We cannot know if this is a broad conspiracy, or only one man's thwarted desire. He has no hope of attaining the throne in his own country, not with twelve older brothers. I do not condone his actions, but I recognize that his only recourse is marriage into royalty."

Their eyes were tight and expectant, and they nodded in agreement with her words. Elsa continued, saying, "Well, we are under no obligation to honour the supposed engagement between this Prince and my sister, and he will certainly not marry into royalty in this kingdom."

"What then do you recommend? We will look weak, impressionable, if we do not prosecute him to the fullest of our laws," said Ser Ostven. His great beard waggled with his tempestuous words, acting as co-conspirator and rabble-rouser.

"He shall return to his own country, under guard, and there he will be tried, subject to the laws of his own nation. I shall compose a letter and seal it for the King, and its deliverance will be secured by a small detachment of our Royal Guard. Perhaps our Chancellor wouldn't mind bearing such a vital missive into the King's own hands."

They nodded again in appreciation of the manoeuvre. The Chancellor had rank and nobility, had supervised the initial inquiry, and could be trusted with this task while lending weight to its truth and ramifications. He was also a skilled negotiator, and comfortable with sea voyages, unlike the Bishop before her.

"What is the status of our other visiting dignitary, the Duke of Weselton?" Elsa deliberately avoided the inflammatory phrase often levied against their closest partner in trade.

"He has taken rooms in the Queen's Blessing, an inn in the central part of the village. He has been allowed free movement within the village as long as he does not attempt to leave, and has repeatedly asked for an audience with you," the Bishop replied. "He's made it obvious that he feels mistreated, and claims he was only a victim of fear."

Elsa stifled a snort of derision, though she allowed the undignified huff in the silence of her mind. Outwardly she asked, "Your analysis, gentlemen, on the impact of severing trade with Weselton."

Ser Ostven stroked his very bristly beard and solemnly replied, "As far as I'm aware, Your Majesty, they buy far more goods than we import from them. Mainly textiles of wool, fine and coarse grades of wood, iron ore, and the like. While the revenue from this exchange is quite substantial, we could attempt to establish similar exports with other nations and districts. Corona, and the British Isles, perhaps?" The man looked to the Bishop to see if he agreed with his analysis, and the Bishop nodded.

"Please inform our financiers and officials of this proposal, and have them draft a declaration for me to sign, to dissolve our trade with Weselton." She paused and cleared her throat before continuing, "I am well aware that the treasury will be quite strained for some time to come. It is vital to engage with new nations to refresh our economy, and we must encourage our citizenry to be as productive as possible. I can only pray for a good harvest to come."

"You could consider raising taxes, Your Majesty," Ser Ostven suggested.

"I will personally sell my mother's jewellery before I impose an extra tax upon my people," Elsa sternly replied. "Now more than ever they need to have faith in our governance, and pride in our land and country. I will not alienate them by demanding their last penny."

"As you wish, your Majesty," he replied, getting up from his chair to give her a short bow.

When he returned to his seat, Elsa asked, "Is there further business?"

"Not at this time, Queen Elsa."

"Excellent. I should like to release Prince Hans in no more than two days. Please see to the outfitting of that ship, make it our highest priority. I shall require the draft of dissolution of trade no later than tomorrow."

Both men nodded in acquiescence. They bowed once more before taking their leave, leaving Elsa feeling drained in every possible way. After a moment she stood up and walked over to the wide banks of windows. From this height she could see the forecourt of the castle and then the steeply pitched roofs of the village, watching the general clamour and bustle of her subjects. Crocuses bloomed soft and sweet upon windowsills, the national flower of Arendelle. It survived adversity, just like the people she served.

From here she could see the beauty of the people and land she was born to rule, and she could only be glad at the change in her own heart. It was no longer just duty, the resolve of a girl who had sworn herself to perfection. For the first time in her life Elsa looked upon Arendelle and saw the glorious rhythm and dance of life in the north, her people so great and proud, with hearts as fierce and everlasting as Anna's.

Elsa walked over the sceptre and the orb of her office, and taking them in her hands she looked at the portrait of her dead father, the King of Arendelle, and with a glorious quaking tongue she made yet another oath, stating with fervent wish, "I accept the duty and responsibility of the Kingdom of Arendelle, father, and never again will I abandon my kingdom and my people. I swear this to you, upon my head and crown."

She genuflected deeply to the picture, her heart burning. "I forgive you, father. And I promise… to stay."

* * *

><p>The song title for this chapter is "Stay" by Rihanna with Micky Ekko. In case you hadn't noticed, these songs are my playlist while I'm writing. If you have any gorgeously hauntingly beautiful songs to suggest as chapter titles, leave a review or send me a PM!<p> 


	5. Chapter 5 - I Hate This Part

**Chapter Five – I Hate This Part**

The remainder of the day passed by quickly, and Elsa's thoughts strayed often to her sister, wondering how the shopping was going, whether she hated her tutor and the subjects required of proper ladies, and if she had hurt herself in blades practice. She couldn't wait to watch a training session, though she wasn't sure she could keep her powers in check should any harm come to the Princess.

Bulda attended upon her as she finally left her study, and she sent a servant on ahead with a note for Anna, asking if she would like to join her for supper. She was more than crestfallen when the reply came so much later; Anna had met up with Kristoff after blade practice and had treated him to supper in the village to subtly pump him for descriptions of his belongings. The only saving grace of the note was a hurried scrawl that said she would come to Elsa before retiring, to perhaps share a hot drink and say goodnight.

So Elsa contented herself with a solitary dinner, and tried to raise her own spirits. Anna had her own life, and her own friends. Queens did not have many friends. Their kingdom was so small that there were scarcely any ladies of rank who were even near her age. The mere thought of trying to fashion friendships with any of them was terrifying. For a woman who had spent the majority of her life locked in her room, Elsa felt she deserved some of her anxiety about friend-making and relationships.

But her bedroom seemed so empty now, so frozen. She stood in the center of it, looking at her wardrobe, her bed with its elaborate curtains, the oval mirror that stood above the bureau. This room had suffered repeated freezing and slow thawing over the years. The bed had been replaced five times. The bureau twice. Even the floor, though her father had been able to explain away most of this damage with stories of inadequate eaves troughs and faulty plumbing and water damage.

She didn't really have to stay here anymore. There was nothing stopping her from moving into the room next to this one, which was the room next to Anna's. There was even a sally door between the two bedrooms, an access point without having to go to the hallway. Yes, she would miss the door that connected this room with her private bathing chamber, but there was one adjoining Anna's room, and with her sister's permission, she could just use it. She wasn't above tripping down the hallway a short span either in order to keep using the bathing room she had now.

She was the Queen. She could do it if she wanted to.

If it was okay with Anna.

Elsa passed the last waning hours of the evening in a quiet sort of reflection, having slipped into their favourite sitting room, now restored by the workmen. It wasn't cool enough for a fire, which was a shame, for Elsa dearly loved to simply watch the crack and pop of the flames, the tongues of fire that licked the dry pine and fir, sparks resplendent in their launch to the heavens.

An idea inflated her chest with hope.

With a delighted little smile Elsa released just a hint of her magic, bringing the temperature in the room down. She had never had such control over her powers, such confidence in her art. When the sitting room was comfortably chilly, she leaned over to strike the fire into life and then sat back in the couch with a contented little sigh.

Immensely comfortable and gloriously deep in a reverie that had no word or memory, Elsa was startled when the knock came on the open door. Her heart beating quickly in surprise, Elsa called out, "Come in!"

"I gotta tell you, sis, I like the new open door policy," Anna smirked, bustling into the room. It appeared she had come directly from the village, for she swung off a light cloak and dropped a sack with a heavy thunk by the little couch. "Wait, is it cold in here? You are a very useful person to have around, Your Majesty."

Then before Elsa could rise and greet her sister, Anna glided over, airily kissed her on the forehead, and then sat on the couch in a motion that could be nearly classified as a flop.

The kiss burned bright on Elsa's skin and she had to shake her head and grin at her impetuous little sister.

Right until she noticed a dark splotch on the left arm of Anna's blouse. "What happened?" Elsa asked, scooting forward until she was nearly in Anna's lap, taking and lifting the sleeve.

"It's not a big deal, Elsa," Anna protested. "I did warn you that I am clumsy, right? Well, I got a little cut today, that's all."

Elsa had to work hard to bite back every concern, for she had no wish to alienate her sister or brand her as incompetent. Trust came with a give and take on both sides, and though she blanched to see the neatly tied bandage with yet another dark line of blood, Elsa stuffed all her motherly instincts into a tight box and set it aside.

"Did you win?" she managed to ask.

Anna had been looking rather wary, and only then did she grin. "I wish I could say that I gallantly saved the bout with a remarkable display of prowess, but no. I didn't win. Not this time."

"What instructions did they give you to take care of it?"

"Oh, I'm to change the bandage sometime around… well, now. It's a clean cut, no signs of infection, but the physician-in-training wants to see it tomorrow to be sure." She leaned over the arm of the couch and brought her sack onto her lap. There was a small pot of ointment in it, along with a clean dressing. "I'll get Bulda or Gerda to help me with it later."

"Would you mind my assistance?"

"I didn't know you were okay around blood. Wait, are you okay around blood? You look far too pretty tonight to be throwing up your supper."

Elsa smiled at the compliment as a warm glow enveloped her heart. "I don't even know for sure if I'm okay around blood, Anna, but I guess I should probably learn. I mean, you're not going to give up blade training, are you?" Her princess emphatically shook her head, so Elsa continued, "So I thought. Well, I'd rather take care of you before anyone else does, and if this is going to be part of your life, I'll tag along."

"Just when exactly did you become so wonderful?" Anna mused, taking Elsa's hand. "Please don't tell me that you were always this nice. I couldn't bear knowing that such awesomeness was just a closed doorway away."

Equal measures of joy and regret poured forth from Elsa's heart at Anna's words. "I've never had anyone to be wonderful to," she mused. "But now I have you."

"You have all of me," Anna agreed, lifting Elsa's hand to her lips and kissing it before abruptly releasing it. It was yet another spot of fire upon Elsa's cool skin, and that strange pull of longing once again manifested itself deep in her body. When did Anna become so affectionate? Was she this way with everyone?

_Please don't let her be this way with everyone._

Anna started picking carefully at the tied edges of the bandage, so Elsa shooed her fingers away and did it herself. She was aware of Anna looking softly at her as she started to gently unwrap the fabric. It stuck to the wound, so Elsa hurriedly found a basin and poured in some water that had been heating by the fire. With the application of warm water the blood seal was softened, and the cut finally revealed.

Elsa was glad to discover that she didn't mind blood, even though a little of it seeped now from the edges of the forming scab. It was a fairly long cut but fairly shallow as well, and spoke of the calibre of the teaching in the yard, when an instructor could pull back a strike that should have severed the arm entirely and leave only a small cut like this.

Anna hissed lightly as Elsa washed out the wound with the water, and then she put a thin layer of the smelly ointment over the cut. She wrapped it with the new bandage provided, tying the final knot very carefully. "Does that look about right?" Elsa asked, thrusting her lightly bloodied hands into the basin of water to wash.

Anna put her hand over the bandage to feel it and smiled, "Looks pretty professional to me. Well done, Nurse Elsa."

Elsa smirked at her sister as she briefly left the room, taking the basin of bloodied water with her. In a nearby bathing chamber she washed her hands one last time with fresh water and soap and dried them with a towel. Anna was watching her intently when she returned to the drawing room, and hardly had she come through the open door did her sister ask, "So, how did it go with Hans today?"

"I actually didn't see him in person, though I took testimony and counsel from Ser Ostven and the Bishop. I convinced them that the best course of action would be to send Hans back to the Southern Isles, under arrest and guarded by a small detachment of our forces, and the Chancellor would represent me and relate our story. Hans will stand trial in his own country, not in ours."

"That's a rather delicate position to be in, isn't it? I mean, we don't want to downplay what he did, or worse, what he intended to do, but he is not your subject. I think you're right; it's best to show we have faith in the legal systems of our closest neighbours. We need all the allies we can get."

Elsa smiled warmly at her sister. "You grasped that rather faster than those gentlemen did earlier today. By the way, you no longer wish to be married to Prince Hans, do you?"

"Are you kidding me?"

Elsa laughed. "I had to be sure, Anna. I was ready to use bribery and brainwashing if your answer had been otherwise."

"Oooh, what would you have bribed me with?"

"Seriously? That's your question?"

"Well?"

"Chocolate truffles, of course. Then new artwork. And ducklings, if needed. Don't think I don't know some things about you, Princess." Elsa grinned happily at her sister and continued, "I also decided to dissolve our trade agreement with Weselton. We can ship our goods elsewhere. That, at least, should send a message that we will brook no attempted treason; especially under the Duke's own authority. He knew full well what he was doing."

"Wait, what? Treason? I'm missing something here."

"The Duke's men tried to kill me."

"And you're only telling me this _now?!_"

"I didn't exactly have the opportunity before now."

"So what happened?"

"Not long after you and Kristoff were escorted rather suddenly off my property, which, by the way, I'm really sorry for, I was just so scared of losing control and hurting you again that I just had to get you out of there, though, admittedly, creating a giant snow monster to hurl you down the stairs was a tad overdone…"

"Ahem," Anna said rather loudly, interrupting Elsa's rambling. "I accept your apology, Elsa. I know why you did what you did. So go on."

"A small party of people had arrived, including Hans, two of the Duke's men, and some guards and villagers. My snow monster tried to keep them from invading the palace, but Hans is rather handier with a sword than I anticipated. The Duke's men took advantage of the confusion to rush into the palace and confront me. I tried to make them stay away, but then one of them shot at me with a crossbow, and I barely managed to make an ice shield, just in time. The arrowhead was only inches from my face."

Elsa noticed Anna scoot a little closer on the couch, her hand now on Elsa's knee. She licked her suddenly dry lips and continued, "The other man was circling me, and when he raised his bow to shoot, I pinned him to the wall with spikes of ice around his body. And then, then I started to get really angry, and to truly lose control." She stared at her hands, curled in her lap, unable to look at Anna. "I shot an ice bolt to knock the bow from the first man's hands, and when he went to retrieve it, I trapped him with walls of ice.

"And then I pushed him, Anna. The power was so vast and strong inside me, and it was the first time in my life I realized that I could protect myself. It was the first time I discovered that I need no weapon, not with the magic inside me. So I pushed him, back and back, until he nearly fell from the upper balcony. He would have died; and I knew I would have pushed him over the edge, had Hans not stormed into the room just then. And he said… he said the only thing that could have brought me to my senses. He said, 'Queen Elsa, don't be the monster they fear you are.'"

Anna still had not moved, and her hand stayed warm and welcoming on Elsa's knee, giving her the last bit of courage to tell the rest of the tale. "It shocked me so much I just stared at him. But then the man I had pinned with ice managed to raise his bow, and would have killed me even then, for I wouldn't have been able to stop him, but Hans raised the bow just in time. The dart flew up into the ceiling, severed the tether that held up an enormous chandelier, and it fell nearly on top of me, and I lost consciousness.

"When I came to, I was back in Arendelle, in prison, shackled to the wall."

"They what?" Anna spluttered. "They shackled you to the _wall?!_"

Elsa finally looked up, only to face Anna's indignation.

"How on earth was this _allowed?!_"

"I did just try to kill a man, Anna. They believed me dangerous, and I was. Your own heart is evidence as well." Elsa could not keep the regret and sadness from her voice. "Hans came to talk to me, to beg me to reverse the spell and bring back summer, but I truly didn't know how. I was desperate to talk to you, but then he told me that you hadn't yet returned.

"Oh, Anna, I was so scared! I imagined a million scenarios of what may have happened to delay you and none of them ended very well. My anxiety was also trashing the room around me, and to see that horrifying storm outside, oh it only reflected every fear of my heart! I had… I had to get away, so when I heard them returning, I focused my power to break the shackles and then blasted the wall open, escaping out onto the frozen ice of the fjord.

"And I believe you know the rest."

"I saw you," Anna said quietly, her tone dark and sombre. "The snow storm suddenly stopped, and I saw you. Why you were crumpled on the ice like that? It broke my heart to see you brought so low."

Elsa licked her lips, her heart tripping high and fast.

Truth. She promised Anna truth.

_I hate this part._

"Hans followed me out onto the ice, and then told me that you had returned, that you said I froze your heart. That your hair had turned white and your skin was like ice. That he tried to save you, but he was too late. He… he told me that you died, and it was all my fault. You died because of me. And hearing of your death stopped my own heart, and the snow storm with it, and I fell to the ground and wanted to die, too. I wanted him to kill me." Elsa's voice broke in a barely contained sob, and she hastily looked away.

Anna would have nothing of it. She opened her arms and pulled Elsa into the warmth and safety of an embrace. "Oh my sweet Elsa," Anna murmured, "I would have reacted the same way if I had lost you. I would have…" and the words cracked open, and the chasm in her voice mirrored Elsa's own fear, and Elsa cried yet again for Anna's death that could have been, for to dam the flood of tears now would harm more than it would help. She simply had to cry over it, and over all that had happened since, but even in the midst of her tears she found a coruscating heart of joy.

For revealing her powers and going through this ordeal had broken the shackles of suppression and lies, and the freedom she now felt was far sweeter than she could have imagined in her days of isolation. She could not mourn too much over the disastrous events following her coronation, for the gods had gifted her with blessing upon blessing, the greatest of which was the reunion with the girl who had been the hidden cornerstone of her existence.

Besides, hugging Anna just felt so good. It was wondrous to feel the warmth of another's skin, the steady heartbeat, the miniscule movements of muscles and breath. She didn't want to irritate her sister with her neediness, though, so she pulled away after a few minutes, wiping her eyes with her hands and said, "I hope you don't mind all these hugs," Elsa said, sitting back so she could see her sister clearly. "I mean, it just feels so good so be close to you."

"Elsa, believe me," Anna replied, "I still owe you… at least a hundred hugs."

Elsa's eyebrow lifted at the exact number, and Anna grinned before continuing, "Well, there's birthday hugs for each of us, and Yule hugs, and Maypole hugs, surely every holiday deserves a hug. And then there's hugs for boo-boos and ouchies, and you're right, I seriously got on the wrong side of nearly every suit of armour in the castle, and then there are, of course, the hugs for no reason whatsoever. Easily at least a hundred. Maybe two."

"I didn't hug them before they left," Elsa blurted out, shame coating her tongue with such bitterness she just had to speak. "I stopped letting people touch me when I was eleven years old."

_(I'm scared, it's getting stronger! No, don't touch me!)_

Stark silence, and a bright flare of pity and worry in Anna's eyes. She didn't say a word; she just waited for Elsa to find her way through the darkness of silence to the dawn of truth.

"I didn't go to their funeral."

Quiet.

"I heard you that day, Anna, singing outside my door. I heard every ounce of sadness in your voice, and I did nothing."

"What were you doing at that moment, Elsa?" Anna quietly asked after another long pause.

"I was leaning against the door, as close to you as I would ever allow myself to get. My room was streaked in blasts of ice, and snow hung in the air." Another long pause. "You sat outside my door that day for hours, cold and alone." Only the popping of flames. "What kind of person does that to their little sister?"

"You tell me, Elsa," Anna said quietly. "Why did you do all those things?"

"I was trying to protect them, and you. Always you. I froze mother once, you know. Gave her frostbite. Sera Avundir had to amputate two of her toes."

"Go on. Why else?"

"What do you mean why else? This shield of protection became my entire life! I wore the gloves to keep my distance from people and things. Conceal, don't feel – that hated phrase was my only religion!"

"Keep going."

"I hated them, Anna, for the prison they put me in. And I hated you for your freedom!"

"My freedom?" Anna replied, a red flush creeping up her cheeks. "I may not have been confined to a bedroom, but the castle was my only playground. I was never allowed outside without an escort. Every gain I ever made, ditching embroidery, learning to shoot a bow, finally gaining my blade, was because I would not back down! How could you just give up on your life like that?"

"Because my life was never mine to begin with!" Elsa shouted, abruptly getting up off the couch. She hated the look of shock and anger in Anna's eyes, and she hated the dragon that reignited along her spine, for his every scale was dripped in venom, and his jaws dripped in fury. "Always, always the crown waited for me, always I would be exiled in service to the kingdom, never allowed to know another life or another place. I could never be the sister you deserved; I could never know love or true happiness! I saw my future and it was frozen forever in lies and protection. Marriage, family, this would be impossible for me. You could at least marry away from here, you could choose to go away…"

"But that's exactly what you chose, isn't it, Elsa?" Anna shot back, also getting up from the couch. "You left the kingdom without saying why, and only then did you find your glory, your beauty, and the depths of your power. I saw you in the ice palace you created, you looked so wonderful and different, your hair all beautiful and that gown just hugged every one of your curves, and I knew you had changed for the better, that you had finally let it all go.

"And your talent, my god, Elsa, can you even understand what it's like to see you work your magic? Such power, such creations, I saw all of it and then had to be content with being just me. The girl who breaks things just by looking at them."

Elsa opened her mouth to protest, but Anna's face was so grim that Elsa stayed quiet and listened.

"It seemed like I was doing everything wrong, starting with taking your glove and yelling at you. Everything that happened after was all my fault, just like all the times before."

"Stop, Anna, stop right there!" Elsa cried. "Do not dare to negate my willpower. They were my choices, my consequences. Do not demean me by stripping me of my responsibility. You only did what you thought was best. In that moment, that was the same choice I made, to do what I thought was best, and I did make it, Anna. The burden of it is on my shoulders, not yours."

Anna appeared both shocked and slightly bewildered before her face changed fluidly into the majesty of understanding and victory. Perhaps Elsa's words did absolve her of some misplaced guilt after all, for Anna abruptly said, "You know something? Today is the best day of my life, Elsa. I mean it. From sunrise to sunset you have been my sister, my confidante, and my queen. This is the day I waited for all those lonely hours sitting and singing outside your door. This is the best. Day. Ever."

Elsa gaped at her. Anna blazed like a bonfire. Chest heaving, Elsa took in everything, everything about the moment that suddenly unfurled before her with triumphant glory.

_Oh no!_

There was a solid ring of jagged ice around the two of them and the couch. It was chest-high, sharply fractured, all lines and edges and glass. It would have reflected only Elsa's anger and despair if not for the sharply etched designs of vines and crocus flowers and trees like the weeping willow outside the gates, softening and gentling every fractal, every point.

And Anna herself stood within a massive unfurling bud of a icy crocus, exquisite in texture and completion, surrounding her, protecting her from the queen's onslaught of emotion. A tender ice petal shielded Anna's heart.

They both stared at the creation that had appeared without warning or provocation. Anna spoke first.

"I know you, Elsa," Anna said quietly. "I know you'll never deliberately hurt me. But just like I told you on that mountain, you don't have to protect me anymore, because I am not afraid. Not of wolves, not of ravines, not of scary snow monsters who throw me down staircases of ice. Certainly not of you."

"Aren't you afraid of anything?" Elsa asked, hugging her arms close to her body, almost wishing she had her gloves on so this mess wouldn't have happened. She couldn't look anywhere without seeing the evidence of the loss of her control. Again.

"Oh yes," Anna replied, stepping carefully away from the ice-blown flower. She took strong and hard steps toward Elsa, and her very footsteps almost seemed to burn. She took Elsa's hands and said, "I'm afraid of being shut out of your life again. I'm afraid of being apart from you. I'm afraid to look too hard into my future, because I don't want to see any sort of marriage that takes me away. Where once I would have given anything to step beyond the gates, I now want only to stay."

Such was Anna's power, as strong as any magic. Elsa looked at her sister and knew her heart, recognized the soul-deep cords that connected them, and wished for this moment to last forever.

"I love you. So much," Elsa whispered.

"I know. I love you too."

And Elsa couldn't stop herself, the beauty of the moment so tempered by their exchange of word and feeling, such depths of woe and hatred she had felt only to arrive here, on a dizzying precipice of love and longing, so she gently cupped Anna's face in her hands and kissed her lightly, sweetly, upon the mouth.

* * *

><p>Happy Friday, everyone! The song for this chapter is "I Hate This Part" by the Pussycat Dolls.<p>

If you're enjoying the story, please drop me a line or share even a brief review. I'd love to hear from you.


	6. Chapter 6 - Wanderer's Lullaby

**Chapter Six – Wanderer's Lullaby **

Ringed about by heaving shards of ice, bathed by the crackling heat of the fire, the light in the room all velvet and kittenish, Anna felt Elsa's lips on her own.

The kiss was incredibly brief but overwhelmingly delicious, and Anna could scarcely believe that all those writers actually knew what they were talking about when they said that the heart could fly so dangerously high into the throat, and the pit of the stomach would be dense and deep near the base of the spine, and all that lengthening in the chest was a sign of adoration and acceptance and even the best type of hunger of all; a love-hunger that scraped the insides until they were raw and bleating but the pain of it was so joyous you'd weep when it ended.

How could they have known these things, without actually kissing her sister?

And so Anna's knees trembled, and her heart floated and her stomach sank, and the sensations were delirious and too, too short. At that moment she would have given everything she possessed to hold on, just a little bit longer.

But the kiss was illicit, and perhaps represented only the upper atmosphere of affections that could be granted between sisters. She shouldn't consider it romantical, because, for heaven's sake, it was Elsa! Her sister!

The elongated moment ended, and the lips withdrew, and Anna mourned.

The act of pressing lips seemed to have taken Elsa by surprise as well, manifesting as some urge that couldn't have been denied, but now was definitely over and would probably never happen again. Her sister's pale and lovely face drew back, and in her eyes Anna saw an ocean of concern and hope.

"I hope you don't mind," Elsa murmured. "You are just… adorable."

Anna had to clear her throat of all the love-pain debris that had collected there before she could stammer, "N-no, Elsa. I didn't mind at all." Inside her heart roared a great and sudden beast, and the next few seconds required every concentrated effort in her being to tame that beast, and keep from crushing Elsa in a thunderstorm of an embrace, raining kisses on her lips.

_I promised to tell the truth, but surely this doesn't count!_ came a faint murmur from the depths of her mind. _Or, at least, it's truth enough. I certainly DID NOT mind. At. All._

Elsa's answering smile was slightly tentative, unsure, and she released Anna's face. She broke eye contact with Anna to look at the sheets of ice around them. Anna followed her gaze, if only to be certain that they were still alone, and that no one was peeping through the open door. She had no intention of explaining anything to anyone right now.

A faint whirl of cold was all the notice Anna had of Elsa employing her magic, and the icy forms surrounding them dissolved in streamers of white upon white.

Then Elsa looked right at her again, and again Anna felt that strange and mystifying elongation, that bleating place that was still so very hungry for something she could barely define. "Sera ordered me to make sure you got your rest, Anna," Elsa said. "Could I convince you to retire for the night?"

Anna's mind mischievously curled around the word 'convince', and she replied with a careful note of nonchalance, "Oh, I suppose you could…_convince_ me."

Elsa's face was suddenly and comically wary and surprised, and Anna quickly continued with, "No, no, I only meant that maybe you could brush my hair out for me and… and sing me a song."

"We have an accord," Elsa said solemnly, though Anna could tell that a grin was just waiting to break out on her face. She put out her hand like they were fishmonger and patron, and Anna drew an equal mask of solemnity on her face as she shook it.

Then they both giggled, and Elsa guided her out of the room.

They did not hold hands, or walk arm in arm as they had the previous night. Neither did they speak. For her part Anna was wondering if she could engineer some clumsiness or accident so that she would feel more obliged to take Elsa's arm, but for once the castle was not a co-conspirator, for all the suits of armour had been removed for renovation, and the halls were hideously devoid of decoration or chaise, not a thing she could stumble over at all!

As they drew closer to their separated rooms, Anna was desperate to break the silence, so she asked, "Can I ask what you are thinking about, Elsa?"

Elsa glanced in her direction as they continued to walk, and answered, "I was thinking of our rooms. We shared a room until the accident, and then papa moved you further down the hall. I hated that room between us. To be honest, I was thinking of moving into that room so that we could at least be next to each other. That is, if you wouldn't mind having a neighbour."

This wasn't the first time that Elsa had referenced some accident, but Anna didn't feel the time was quite right to ask about it. Besides, that same balloon of joy and hope was squeezing Anna's breath from her lungs. "I think it's a great idea, Elsa. Only, you shouldn't be the one to change rooms. I mean, you have your bathing chamber right next to you and all. Why don't I change rooms?"

"There's that little door between the spare room and yours, Anna, but no door connecting it to mine."

"You're the Queen. You want a door, you get a door. Offer them chocolate."

Elsa laughed out loud. "I think the workmen might appreciate vodka more than chocolate as an incentive."

"You want vodka, you get vodka."

"So you think that anything I want, I get?" Elsa teased, but the look that was in her eyes wasn't light at all. If anything, Anna would classify it as smoky, or smouldering. Anna licked her lips and remembered the soft pressure of Elsa's mouth.

"Yes," Anna softly replied. "Anything you want, you get. If in it's my power, it will be done." Anna hadn't intended on being so serious or love-puppy-ish, but she couldn't help herself. More than ever she desired Elsa's happiness, and if took a door, or chocolate, or anything else, she would see it done.

Elsa halted in the hallway, just apace of Anna's room. She faced Anna, her face half-cast in shadow from a nearby lamp. "Well, then," she said, her voice low and sultry as if dipped in dark chocolate, "I believe we understand one another." She reached out and took Anna's hand, and then started walking down the hallway again.

Anna was not accustomed yet to the temperature of Elsa's skin. It was a delight to feel it so smooth and cool, like the rare bolts of silk that sometimes came from China by way of the Dutch East India Company. Elsa led her into her bedroom and only then did their hands part, reluctant at the last. Bulda had come in sometime to prepare the room, for Anna's sleeping gown was waiting on the bed. She smiled at Elsa as she took it in her arms and stepped behind the dressing screen.

Only to realize that she couldn't quite reach the lacing at the top of her bodice in the back. She could call a servant, but she already knew what Elsa would say about that.

_Calm yourself, girl. It's just lacing. It's just Elsa._

"Um, Elsa?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"Do you mind helping me with my laces?"

She heard Elsa's footsteps toward her as a positive reply, and she turned her back before the Queen stepped behind the screen. Elsa was efficient and silent, but one stray finger that touched Anna's skin caused a cascade of a shiver to pass over her. "Chilly?" Elsa asked.

"No, I'm good."

The release of pressure on her chest signified the end of the task, and Elsa briefly squeezed one shoulder before she retreated back beyond the screen. Anna hurriedly finished changing, tossing her dress over the top of the screen and drawing on her nightgown. She flexed her arm, testing the soreness of the cut. It didn't feel too bad; the apothecary down in the village was quite gifted, it seemed, with ointments and unguents. Too bad her shoulders felt so sore; though it was only her fault for not stretching well enough beforehand, and for missing all her practice sessions while out searching for Elsa.

When she reappeared, she noticed that Elsa had turned down her covers and was waiting by her dressing table with the brush in her hand, a little chair in front of her. She patted it as invitation, and Anna quickly sat down.

And squirmed, just a little. The proximity of her sister again made her breathless.

"I hope you don't mind this, Elsa," she said as cool fingers started picking out the braids. "I mean, I kind of coerced you into brushing my hair."

"Don't be silly," Elsa replied, her voice chewy and warm. "I always wanted to be able to do this for you."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, pet." Anna melted at the words and at the movement of the brush through her hair. It was incredibly soothing, and Anna felt lulled by the rhythmic movement of the brush. Some time later, she couldn't even really say how much, she felt the sudden cessation of movement, but before she could open her mouth to protest, she felt Elsa's hands on her shoulders.

Ecstasy upon ecstasy!

Elsa began to softly hum as she kneaded the muscles of Anna's shoulders. The palms were gently ground into muscle knots left by blades practice, and then were replaced by thumbs, firm and steadfast. Anna couldn't help a soft mew of purest pleasure as she relaxed her head back and closed her eyes.

The warmth of the bedchamber, combined with the hair brushing and the soft cool glide of Elsa's hands over her muscles and skin; Anna dipped into a blissful state of half-consciousness, each minute dipped in honey and drawn long, so very long. Elsa's gentle hands were balm above any that a physician could prescribe, and Anna felt all her cares slipping away.

Finally she felt Elsa move, until she was crouching down before her. "Come now, sweetheart," Elsa whispered, taking Anna's hands to propel her the few steps to her bed. Anna crawled between the sheets still half-asleep, not wanting to wake from this beautiful reverie that seemed too wonderful to be real.

She drifted asleep to her mother's favourite lullaby, with words that unfolded tapestries of wonder and hope, of love and acceptance, hearing the story of a life she had waited a thousand years to be told. She could only hope that the sentiments expressed in song reflected those in Elsa's own heart.

_Wandering child of the earth_

_Do you know just how much you're worth?_

_You have walked this path since your birth _

_You were destined for more _

_There are those who'll tell you you're wrong _

_They will try to silence your song _

_But right here is where you belong _

_So don't search anymore _

_In your eyes there is doubt _

_As you try to figure it out _

_But that's not what life is about _

_So have faith there's a way _

_Though the world may try to define you _

_It can't take the light that's inside you _

_So don't you dare try to hide _

_Let your fears fade away_

_You are the dawn of a new day that's waking _

_A masterpiece still in the making _

_The blue in an ocean of grey _

_You are right where you need to be _

_Poised to inspire and to succeed _

_Soon you'll finally find your own way…._

* * *

><p>Elsa carefully closed the door to her sister's bedchamber and slowly walked the short distance to her own chambers. She had never felt quite this strange and exultant before; this tumult of feelings was so foreign and exotic she scarcely knew what to make of them.<p>

She had kissed Anna.

Yes, it was brief, but it was still real. It still happened. It was as if she had no will of her own; the kiss was the result of a compulsion deeper than the bones of the mountains around Arendelle, as mysterious as the magic that gave her power.

What caused her heart to gallop as she entered her room was the desire to kiss Anna again. But she couldn't. This kiss she could pass off as the result of a rather stormy exchange of words, leaving her heart open and weak and desperate for validation. Once she discovered she was kissing her sister, she managed to break it off without scaring her, and maybe Anna would even believe that it was just normal, sisterly affection, though how would either of them know what normalcy even was in this castle where human interaction had been a lesson never taught by their tutors and parents?

Her own nightgown was laid out, her bed turned down. Elsa slipped into her sleeping clothes and brushed out her hair still reminiscing about the events of the evening.

If that hadn't been enough, then she had to try to massage Anna's shoulders! What was she thinking? Anna's incredibly hard and lovely shoulders…

She had sent no birthday gift last month for her sister, still mired in the isolation of her whole existence. Maybe she could gift Anna with a personal masseuse. It was probably time to have the sauna renovated as well, after, of course, the rest of the repairs to the castle. What the queen wants, the queen gets, but even the queen knew better than to ask for such frivolities when there was far more important work to be done.

Elsa gathered her hair once more into a simple braid for sleeping and slid between her sheets. The room was a bit stuffy and warm, so she set off the smallest little flurry above her, with snow falling all light and near weightless upon her as she drifted towards sleep.

Comfortable and quiet, Elsa spent the last of her waking moments remembering every single detail about that short and illicit kiss. She slipped effortlessly into sleep.

And dreamed.

The sky was exploding in a furious blizzard of icy wind and flakes of snow with iron edges, dry and bitter. Elsa turned and turned again, seeking a clear path out and away from Arendelle. Perhaps the storm was tethered to her, and if she could only go far enough away she could take the icy blasts with her, separated forever from her kingdom. But there was no marking upon the frozen seas to be seen, no way to tell if she was going forward or back, and her heart clapped with fear like a great thunderstrike inside her breast.

Then he was there, in front of her, behind her, he was everywhere, she could not escape him, and she could not escape his imploring words.

_Queen Elsa, you can't run from this!_

The sleeping Queen moaned lightly, her legs twisting in the sheets. A far and disembodied part of her mind screamed in anguish, that she was dreaming this again, and no god protected her, sheltered her from her nightmares, for this was the only reality presented to her, and it was bitter, bitter on her brass teeth.

The words came to a conclusion that the desperate Ice Queen Elsa was somehow certain she had heard before, that Anna was dead, and it was all Elsa's doing.

And the bitter storm suddenly ceased, for her own heart momentarily stopped beating, and she fell upon the icy heaves of the fjord, a great and terrible pressure in her chest. She could not see, she could not breathe, she could not think of anything except the life she had taken, that the burning flame that was Anna of Arendelle had finally and irrevocably been extinguished at last, and by Elsa's hand.

She heard the blade unsheathed, and it was the most welcome sound in all the world.

Unexpected the cry that came sharp and fast out of the deadened air.

_**Nooooo!**_

Steel shattering, a great whoomph, and Elsa scrambled to her feet only to behold her little sister frozen solid, a block of beloved ice with patterns of most delicate snowflakes within her core as if mimicking the greatness of the soul within.

"Anna! No… no," Elsa mourned, touching the ice cheeks with fingers that begged to touch skin, witnessing the sacrifice that had saved Elsa from the blade; Anna's hand was stretched up, her entire body shielding, blocking, protecting. "No, please no," Elsa cried.

And only ice remained.

And Queen Elsa of Arendelle wilted upon the shoulders of her dead sister, tears scorching hot down her cheeks; she had sworn she would never cry, she had promised that the storm could rage forever because the cold never bothered her anyway, but in all those words she was a thief and a liar, for the storm had died, taken in the same flurry that stole Anna's heart.

So she wept, and was only peripherally aware of the accompaniment to her mourning, for that same young man was here, his head bowed low, his arm over the neck of a reindeer. And Olaf had no smile or delight on his simple face.

Elsa held on to Anna's body for what seemed an eternity, and only stopped when she was aware that the ring of mourners surrounding the lifeless statue had increased. A thousand snowflakes still hung in the air, fracturing the far and distant light, and in a solid ring around the sisters was her entire court, Kai and Gerda and Bulda and all the other faithful servants, and the various Dukes and ladies of the keep, the Bishop and his clerics, even the fearful visiting dignitaries.

The crowd swelled, and villagers joined the throng, and the men took the caps from their heads, and babies squalled thinly in the bitter air, and every man, woman and child bowed their heads to the Princess who had sacrificed her life to save the Queen.

And though they said nothing to Elsa, she could feel their judgment on her, she could hear their thoughts branding her shoulders

_Your sister is dead, because of you!_

and Elsa could not take it back, she could never take any of it back, or her mother would still have all the toes on her foot, and her room would never have been renovated half a dozen times, and her sister would be alive, wonderfully alive and breathing.

"Come, come away now Queen Elsa," Kai murmured, his arm close but not touching, he had learned to never touch her; he could only try to shepherd her like a lost and bleating lamb back to the castle and to a life now hollow and rank with betrayal.

But Elsa would not move, not until the far and mocking sun began to fade behind mountains clotted with snow and ice, and the servants rigged a sled, carefully placing the frozen princess upon it, and with dreadful sadness and solemnity the people returned with their icy monument to the snow-damned castle that was Elsa's heritage.

Hans was imprisoned, and mysteriously assassinated before he could stand trial.

The young man fled with his reindeer, never to be seen again.

The Duke of Weselton joined with the King of the Southern Isles and together they summoned an army, and besieged the kingdom with their forces.

Olaf wandered the snowy and desolate halls of the forsaken castle, Elsa's only companion, and how she despised him for his patience and his loyalty!

And Anna remained frozen, as solid and eternal as the endless winter and infernal war that slowly killed her people; she was both an ornament and a dread memorial, and every night Elsa spent hours at her sister's ice feet, bowed and broken.

Months passed. She was the Queen, and she was blunt, and she was terrible.

And with malice cracking open her spine, with hatred and fear releasing the Kraken within, she smote the armies around her, employing her own malignant alchemy, turning the bodies of the attacking forces into columns and structures of snow and ice, to be abandoned as pillars and tombs where they stood.

And on the one year anniversary of the fateful day she murdered her sister, buried under an avalanche of shame and remorse, Queen Elsa finally slipped from the snowy castle and escaped back into the mountains, and there she was attacked by a pack of wolves, and when the leader ripped out her throat, all she could do was cry out in relief…

… in a heart-rending wail that catapulted her away from her pillow, disoriented and dismayed, alone in her room under a thin and gentle flurry of snow.

She clapped her hands over her mouth in horror, and then leaped from her bed into thin slippers, scarcely noticing the twisted and misshapen structures of ice in her room, hideous and menacing. She fled down the hall before she could rationalize what she was doing, opening Anna's door and going right to her bedside.

The waning moon let in a smooth and creamy light, illuminating the face and profile of the sleeping princess. Her chest rose and fell in nearly silent breath, and a tendril of hair was in her mouth. Elsa stood at her bedside and wrestled her own body and magic back into submission, convincing herself that it was only a dream, Anna was fine, she was alive, she was here, she did not stay an ice statue forever.

It took a long time before Elsa calmed herself, and swept away the disturbing cobwebs of the dream. A new horror came to her as she realized the nightmare had come two nights in a row so far, new incarnations of futures that may have been, and as her mouth filled with vinegar she wondered if this was to be her punishment now, to dream Anna's death a thousand times over.

She wanted to wake her up, and have Anna comfort her and ease her back to sleep as she did the night before, but she chastised herself for being selfish. The heart irregularity, remember? Anna needed her rest, physician's orders.

Anna murmured in her sleep and turned over, and Elsa stood stock still, barely breathing, until she was sure Anna still slept. Only then did she back up to the door, keeping Anna in her sight until the very last minute, and then left the room.

She could not bear to return to her chamber, not with the dream so awful and thick upon her. She returned only long enough to grab a robe hanging from a strange fractal of ice, and then made her way on silent feet to the drawing room.

Elsa was astonished to see firelight flickering under the closed door, so she opened it to see who had restored the fire she had extinguished before bed.

Olaf was sitting on the little couch, an enormous grin on his face, his stick arms outstretched to hold his snowy feet, his personal flurry blanketing him with cold even as the fire crackled and hissed before him. He turned to look at her and grinned even wider, if that was possible. "Elsa!" he cried, jumping from the couch.

Elsa kneeled down and accepted the warm hug she knew was coming. Olaf held her hand and tugged her back to the couch, asking, "What are you doing up so late?"

A few "queenly" responses ran through her head, but she decided Olaf deserved only truth, just like Anna, so she replied, "I had a bad dream, Olaf, so I decided to get up and walk it off."

"I don't dream," he replied, a touch of remorse in his voice. "I don't sleep, either. I guess it comes with not really having a brain."

"At least you don't need a brain to be as sweet as you are," she replied.

"You think I'm sweet?" Olaf smiled. "Well, I think you're amazing. And beautiful."

"Thank you," Elsa replied. "Tell me, what do you think of summer?" she asked, hoping that conversation would banish the last lingering effects of the poisonous dream.

"Oh, it's everything I ever dreamed it could be. Though I haven't found a dandelion yet. For some reason people keep pulling them out of the ground before they can get all cute and fuzzy."

An idea blazed into Elsa's mind. She carefully concentrated her magic and held out her hand. Right before her eyes a dandelion of ice formed, with delicate seed heads formed of the finest crystals of snow. Olaf's eyes widened to a huge size as he beheld the flower in her hands, and then she held it out to him.

He took it, looked imploringly at her, and she nodded in delight. With a big puff of breath he blew the seed heads away from the dandelion, where they danced until they sizzled in the heat of the fire. He laughed in an expression of utter joy.

"You're very lucky, Olaf," Elsa said as every seed head whirled into oblivion.

The snowman held the denuded stalk and looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"When you blow off all the seed heads at one blow, it means that someone loves you very, very much."

"Really?" Olaf asked in wonder, staring at the ice flower before looking back at Elsa. "Someone loves me the way that Anna loves you?"

Elsa wasn't expecting that response, and immediately blushed. "I – I guess so. Yes, actually."

"I bet it's Sven," Olaf replied. "He keeps trying to kiss my nose. He loves everyone, you know. Especially Kristoff. And Anna."

"Everyone loves Anna."

"Could you make me another ice dandelion, please?" Olaf suddenly asked, his smile turning slightly shy.

Elsa smiled in return and quickly made another fluffy-headed dandelion; it was easier this time, since she had already done it once. She made to give it to Olaf, but he pressed it back into her hands. "It's so much fun, Elsa, why don't you give it a try?"

"Okay," Elsa said, playing along. She took a deep breath and blew on the dandelion, gratified and pleased to see yet another spiralling whirl of seed heads erupt into crystals of fine snow before melting in the air.

"Oh, oh!" Olaf said, clapping his stick hands together. "Someone loves you, too! That one's easy. It's Anna. And me."

"Are you being a love expert again?" Elsa asked, a burning glow in her heart.

"Sure I am. You don't need a brain to be a love expert. You must have given me a heart when you built me, though, because I get to feel all these things. I'm really glad you built me."

"Anna and I made a snowman just like you when we were little," Elsa replied, sitting back against the couch. "The night I left Arendelle after my coronation and began to use my powers openly for the first time, I was feeling so happy and so free. You were built out of that happiness I felt, so I'm really glad I built you, too."

"So why did you build Marshmallow man?" Olaf asked. "He was all big and mean and scary."

Pause.

"You're hesitating," Olaf said dryly.

Elsa weakly smiled at him and said, "When Anna told me what had happened after I left, that I had caused an eternal winter to fall on Arendelle, I got all scared again. I felt like I could never be free of the curse, that I still had not protected anyone, even though I ran so far away."

"It's a good thing that Anna loves you. She forgives you for everything that happened out there. She's so glad you get to be sisters again."

"How do you know this?"

"She told me at supper tonight with Kristoff. She said that she's never been happier in her life, and that she's so excited to spend time with you and get to know you. Kristoff sometimes had a funny look on his face when she was saying this."

Elsa felt that she shouldn't be asking the innocent little snowman these questions, but she really wanted to know more. "A funny look?" she asked.

"Yeah, it was like he wished she would talk about him like that, but he's willing to wait a while and see if he can't get Anna to fall in love with him."

Elsa's mind went into jealous overdrive at the thought, though the more responsible part of her said she definitely needed to stop asking Olaf questions. Olaf had no social filter yet, and probably didn't know that he wasn't supposed to repeat what people told him about their thoughts and wishes. She somewhat regretfully ground her questioning to a halt, and looked at the fire for a while.

"What was your bad dream about?" Olaf suddenly asked.

Elsa turned to look at him, slightly surprised. She had assumed that he forgot why she said she was still awake. "I dreamed that Anna came out to save me on the ice, like she did yesterday morning. In my dream she put up her hand, turned into ice, and stopped Prince Hans from killing me. But then I dreamed that Anna didn't wake up, that she stayed frozen solid, and I wasn't able to save her or revive her. Her act of sacrifice didn't thaw her. And I didn't know how to melt anything, so the entire village and kingdom stayed locked in that eternal winter forever."

She stopped there, but his eyes were so intense, and he said, "Go on."

Elsa could have lied even then, to say that was as far as the dream went, but she did not want to fail in the eyes of this one person who just loved everyone and everything and spoke truth with every word. "And I was so sad, Olaf, I couldn't bear the thought that I had killed Anna, so one day I left the kingdom to go back into the mountains, and then I was attacked and killed by a pack of wolves."

"Wow. I don't ever want to dream if bad things like that can happen."

"It was pretty awful," Elsa admitted. "I ran to Anna's bedroom, just to be sure that she was still alive."

"Did you wake her up and talk to her?"

"No, I didn't."

"Why not?"

"Because the doctor told me to make sure that Anna gets a lot of sleep for the next little while. I didn't want to disturb her." She said this with a hint of trepidation, wondering if Olaf would ask why those were the doctor's orders.

"Do you love Anna, too?" he asked.

And even though Elsa knew full well that Olaf might relay her answer, and share it with Anna and Kristoff or whoever might cross his path, she spoke the words anyway. "I love her very much, Olaf. I love her with all my heart."

"Hmm," said the little snowman. "Anna told me that afternoon after Prince Hans left her for dead that she didn't know what love is. And I told her that love is putting someone else's needs above your own. She really did that when she saved you from Hans out there on the ice. Do you think you're doing that when you don't wake her up after a bad dream?"

The question was far too astute for a snowman without a brain.

"Yes, I want to put her needs first. She needs rest."

"But she wants and needs to be sisters with you. Wouldn't sisters wake each other up?"

"That's a hard question, Olaf," Elsa admitted. "But technically, yes, sisters would wake each other up."

"Wow. Those needs are complicated."

"Yes, they are." Elsa suddenly yawned, truly realizing that it was the middle of the night, and she was sufficiently recovered from her dream as to attempt to sleep again. She looked at her little creation with all the tenderness in her heart and said, "Thank you, Olaf."

"Thank you for what?"

"Just for being you. Can I get you anything before I go back to sleep?"

"Nothing for me, though in the morning I would love to take some carrots to Sven. I'll just stay here a while and watch the fire."

"How's the flurry holding up? You're still good and cold?"

"Yep."

"Good." Elsa stood from the couch and then briefly bent down and kissed Olaf on his snowy brow. The snowman's face was wreathed in smiles as she left the room, causing a most satisfied glow to break in her heart.

The gods kept blessing her, even though she felt undeserving. From the ashes of her dream a most serendipitous encounter had unfurled, and she felt incredibly happy that she had created a being who so understood love and happiness.

Elsa understood that there was much she could learn from him.

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><p>I found the title for this song when seeking out lullabies. If you go to YouTube and search for Brave Wanderer's Lullaby, you'll find it!<p> 


	7. Chapter 7 - Just the Way You Are

**First, much love and thanks for my many faves, follows and reviews! I love that you love my fluffy story. Even if I went to San Francisco a while ago and wrote Chapter Eight, which ended up being non-fluffy, and might even have some plot in it? Until then, you can have Chapter Seven - Just The Way You Are (by Bruno Mars).**

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><p><strong>Chapter Seven – Just the Way You Are<strong>

Elsa woke up with a smile on her lips, and a song in her heart. She greeted the Saturday morning with all the exuberance she had once had as a child, before the accident, before the gloves and the mantra of restraint they represented. She looked out upon the dawning world and wished she could follow only the impulses of her heart this day, and join Anna in her shopping trip, and take a walk together to the waterfalls, and maybe have a picnic in the nearby grove, with the grass smelling sweet and the clouds drifting lazily above, shedding her worries and cares as she would shed her crown, just for one day.

Elsa walked to her wardrobe out of sheer habit, looked with distaste at the dresses within, and promptly shed her nightgown. Then she created an ice dress, shimmering with delightful cold, an array of her favourite blues and sea foam greens. Soon her hair was brushed, plaited in a thick and generous cable of platinum with threads of blue ribbon, and she was out the door.

The kitchen staff certainly did not expect to see her knocking on the doorframe to the enormous set of rooms that served the denizens of the castle. The woman who was forming the last loaves of bread in their pans was the closest to the Queen, and she gaped for just a moment before dipping into a rusty-looking curtsey. "Your Majesty," she said, loud enough for everyone working in the kitchen to be aware of the presence of royalty and to make their obeisance.

Elsa smiled, a shade deeper and more joyous than the polite smile often levied upon the people, and inclined her head to the bows and curtsies that swept through the room. At the farther end, Kai had been in a conversation with the head cook, and he looked up in surprise. "Please, I have no wish to greatly trouble you," Elsa said. She could see Kai abandon his conversation and make his way over to her.

"Your Majesty," he said. "You are up earlier than expected. I'm sorry, but breakfast is not quite ready yet."

"I can appreciate that, Kai. However, all I would like at this moment is carrots."

His look was nearly indecipherable, but the pause spoke of his confusion. "Carrots?" he repeated.

"Yes, carrots. Olaf would like some."

"You could have told me in our morning briefing," he said. "There was no need to come down here."

"There was no need, but there was a wish," Elsa replied, thinking of her conversation with the snowman. "Why send others to fulfill promises that I make?"

Apparently the queen's wish was ample enough, for a small sack of carrots was hastily fetched from the stores and brought to the queen. "Thank you," said Elsa. "I'll go find Olaf, and then I'll meet you as scheduled for our briefing, Kai."

Her steward shortly bowed, and she walked away from the room, her heels clicking brightly on the polished stone floor, aware that there was a remarkable resurgence of whispers and chatter when she left the room.

She began to despair of finding Olaf in time to keep her promise to meet Kai again, but after inquiring of a guard or two she found him in the gallery. He seemed likewise astonished that she personally had acquired the carrots for him, and he scampered off with the gift for Sven.

It was a very enjoyable way to start her day, and she laughed with Kai as he briefed her on various issues in progress, startled and pleased that he had limited her queenly interactions to only half of the day. Perhaps Sera Avundir had given him a directive as well, to make sure the Queen did not overexert herself in the first few days after the disaster.

Anna was ecstatic at the news when she joined Elsa for breakfast. Elsa was pleased to see Anna eating heartily and well, and her sister also reported that she had slept deeply and without dreams. "How about you, Elsa?" Anna inquired. "How did you sleep?"

Elsa should have realized this would come up, and the promise she gave Anna bolted her tongue to the truth, even though she instantly knew that she would face the same questions that Olaf had posed the night before. "I… had another nightmare last night."

"You did? Was it as bad as the night before?"

Elsa nodded, desperately trying to stuff the awful images into some box in the back of her brain. Anna was alive, not frozen, and eating breakfast, not a statue. Elsa had not become a monster who froze people into solid ice and enjoyed it.

"Why didn't you wake me?"

_Here it goes._

"I admit I did come into your room, just to make sure that you were still safe, and still alive. But Sera Avundir ordered lots of rest for you, so I didn't wake you up." Elsa continued, speaking over the opening of Anna's mouth in indignation, "I went to the drawing room and found Olaf there, and we had a nice conversation."

"I know Sera said I need sleep, but what do _you_ need, Elsa? And why do your needs always come second?"

"Right now I need only you," Elsa softly admitted. "And it was enough, barely, to just watch you sleep and convince myself that it was only a nightmare."

"I want you to promise me that you'll wake me up if you ever have nightmares like that," Anna demanded.

"Oh, Anna!"

"Promise! Or I won't sleep at all, I'll stay awake all night just sitting by your bed and watching you like a hawk. Or like a chicken with the face of a monkey." She replicated the Duke of Weselton's very strange facial expression the night of the ball.

Elsa couldn't help but smile. "All right, Anna," she agreed. "I promise."

"I'm glad that's settled. Now, about this afternoon. I would really like it if you came shopping with me. Do you… is that something you might like?"

They both looked at Elsa's eating utensils, which had become suddenly coated in frost.

Elsa pulled the frost back into her palms and carefully set them down on the table. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and said, "I've never been shopping before. I'm still scared of being around a lot of people, especially when I still don't have the best control of my powers. If… if it's okay with you, why don't you shop with Olaf, and then we can think of something else to do together. Maybe something more… private."

The minute she said the word private, she wished she could take it back. She instantly thought back to the intimate privacy of the drawing room the night before, recalling the softness and depth of the lips she ever so briefly kissed.

Her sister blushed, and Elsa wondered if she was thinking the same thing. "Sure, Elsa," she said, her voice creaking slightly. "Olaf loves shopping. But what do you want to do?"

"How about a walk to the waterfall? I've never been there."

"That sounds great," Anna replied, all the brightness back in her voice. "What time?"

"I should be finished with everything by about two o'clock."

"Perfect. That should give me enough time to finish up with Kristoff's things." The two sisters quickly finished their breakfast. When they rose from their chairs, Anna came quickly to her and gave her a hug.

Elsa felt she could never get enough of these hugs, and she held Anna close. "Mmm, breakfast hugs," Elsa whispered.

"An infinite supply, just for you," Anna whispered back, giving Elsa a final beloved squeeze before drawing away.

Then Anna kissed Elsa's cheek, quick and fierce. "I wish you didn't dream those awful dreams, Elsa," Anna said. "I can't even really imagine how it would feel to watch you die every night. Well, actually, I can. It would feel awful, and terrifying. Please, please don't think you have to shoulder the weight of it alone."

A vast boulder of love lodged itself in Elsa's throat, and she was amazed at the size of it, for she did not realize that there could be even greater heights of love to gain when it already seemed to saturate every part of her being. She dared not speak, so she nodded instead.

"Good," Anna stated. "As you said last night, I believe we understand one another."

They left the room side by side and immediately parted ways, and after Elsa took five steps she stopped and glanced back, only to see that Anna had also briefly stopped and was looking in her direction.

The unexpected collision of eyes revealed such secret need and desire that nearly breached all of Elsa's defenses; if Anna raised but one finger in a welcoming gesture Elsa would run to her, sweep her off her feet, and kiss her again and again in a torrent that could never cease.

Anna recovered first, and dipped in a curtsey to her older sister; it was a rite that brought Elsa back to her senses. Her heart hammering in her throat, Elsa curtsied back, and then turned to walk away, wondering if Anna still watched, wondering what Anna was thinking, wondering if this sudden rage of affection and longing could only be attributed to the many years of lack, or if truly signified something more.

The thought of something more was terrifying, so she shut it firmly away, and every step she took towards her study she became the Queen of Arendelle once more.

The hours of work passed by in satisfying quickness. She finished all her letters and correspondence, reviewed the trade dissolution and signed it, and had another quick briefing with Kai just before two o'clock in the afternoon. She had no idea if Olaf would still be with Anna, but she wanted him to feel welcome if he was there. She asked the kitchen to send up a basket of food to enjoy as a late lunch.

Elsa was just making her way down to the castle entrance with said basket in tow when she saw Anna come dashing through the front gate into the forecourt. Olaf was trotting merrily behind her. "Oh, Elsa, I mean, Queen Elsa," Anna puffed as she careened to a halt. Elsa put out an arm to steady her, grinning widely. "Just let me put my things away and I'll come right down. Please say that there is food in the basket. I'm starving."

"There is food in the basket, and plenty of it. Olaf, would you like to join us for a picnic?"

"Really? Come with you and Anna? Just the three of us?"

"Yes, if you'd like."

"I always loved the idea of a picnic. Elsa, you're making all my dreams come true, first with the dandelion fuzz and now a picnic…"

"What's this?" Anna asked, stopping just before dashing upstairs.

"Get on with you," Elsa teased, "I'll tell you the story when you get back. Hurry!"

She watched Anna dash up the stairs, two at a time. So far there was no indication that her heart had been altered at all. Looking only at the surfaces of things, one would think Anna was in perfect health.

Elsa saw so much deeper now, into the impetuous heart of courage that so exemplified her sister, though the surface was still very appealing; Anna was like the shimmering of dawn upon the waves of the sea in the fjord, belying the vast and strong currents of water deep and pure.

Indeed, the princess returned very quickly, and she was the picture of ebullience and amusement, telling Elsa stories about the shopping trip, adventures with Olaf (who considered smelling flowers an adventure), and Elsa could barely find a moment to inquire after the cut arm (healing very nicely, thank you for asking), and how she was feeling generally (never better, you'd think my heart was perfectly fine).

Elsa was mostly quiet, but her heart was soaring with the kind of peaceful goodness that embodies simple appreciation of nature and good company. The grass did indeed smell incredibly sweet, almost a growing smell, like if she breathed in hard enough it would start sprouting in her lungs. The sun was dappled in a million shades of green and yellow as it filtered through the trees. They saw other people along the same wide path that led to the waterfalls, some of them also taking their ease on blankets on the mowed swards of grass, others playing with small children under the trees. Elsa was a bit nervous at first at how many people were around, but she managed to just relax into every moment that arose.

She was aware of their excited whispers as she moved among them, and gave each of them a smile and a nod as she walked side by side with her sister and the flurry-covered snowman. She outright grinned as she saw a woman elbow her husband and exclaim, "It's the Queen. It's really her, Percy!"

Elsa was also immensely pleased to see that her people gave her the space she so desired, and no one intruded on her small party as they continued to make their way to the falls.

They were in no particular hurry, and Anna was moaning with hunger, so Elsa stopped by a great willow tree, gave her the basket and spread out a thin blanket that was tucked on top. They all dug into the food with vigour, and Olaf looked so curious about the aspect of eating that Elsa created a little repast of snow dishes just for him. He nibbled and dined on the same snowy items as the Queen and Princess, mimicking their own exclamations of appreciation for flavour and savour.

And time slowed just for them, with talk and food and then satisfied quiet. Elsa leaned her back against the tree and looked up into the canopy, continually amazed by the depth of colour and beauty surrounding her. She had never spent much time outdoors, and she felt she could stay outside forever.

She sensed eyes on her and glanced at Anna, who just happened to be staring at her with what appeared to be open-eyed adoration. "You know what, Anna?" Elsa said, patting the ground next to her as an invitation for her sister to sit down. Anna came closer but stopped just shy of her. Before Elsa could protest, Anna carefully sat down, and then lay down entirely, tucking her skirts carefully around her long and graceful legs, her head in Elsa's lap.

Elsa's breath tangled in her throat, and she touched Anna's luxurious hair with one hand that scarcely kept from trembling, then placed it on Anna's shoulder.

"Go on, Elsa," her sister murmured, snuggling with contentment and closing her eyes.

Elsa swallowed, and finally was able to say, "This is the best day of my life."

Anna momentarily opened her eyes, to gaze fulsomely and upside down on the queen and grace her with a generous, Anna-like smile. She put one hand on Elsa's knee and closed her eyes again, saying, "I agree, Elsa. It just gets better and better, doesn't it?"

Elsa didn't have to agree out loud. She merely had to caress Anna's neck, and Anna understood.

The magic of this time spent together under the spreading tree was indescribable. Elsa wasn't sure if Anna fell entirely asleep, but neither was she going to break the spell of exquisite silence and soul-comfort that had come upon them. Elsa felt whole and complete in a way never experienced before now, because she could see the families and couples around her rejoicing in the same sunshine, and she could sometimes hear them talk to each other of how wonderful it was to see the Queen and the Princess outside together, and she watched Olaf chase butterflies and small children and anything else worth chasing.

And it felt as if that last tight ball of worry began to melt in her heart, and she began to realize that she needn't be afraid of her people, no more than they should be afraid of her. It was a partnership in this kingdom, and they each had a role to play. If Elsa were to be serious in what she told her advisers, that it was critical to regain the loyalty and trust of Arendelle, then moments like this would do remarkable good. She loved to be seen as a person, out with her sister and her walking snowman-friend, enjoying the summer sun and heat and smell of green growing things.

And her idea for the morrow grew and grew until it was a vast soap bubble in her mind, shimmering with translucent colour and excitement and hope. Tomorrow they would be rid of Prince Hans and the Duke of Weselton, tomorrow Anna would give the new sled to Kristoff and Sven, and tomorrow the Queen would surprise her people with a skating party.

Tomorrow.

But tomorrow did not come without yet another night filled with terror.

It seemed that every hideous mare of the underworld felt free to prey on the young Queen during the midnight hours. Elsa struggled in yet another reality where Anna stayed dead, and the kingdom stayed frozen, and Elsa herself sank into the guise of a ruthless dictator, taxing her people and imprisoning dissenters, until all her kingdom rose in violence and bloodshed, her dream ending with the feeling of a rope around her neck, hanging from a gibbet in the square, seeing with her dying breath that the sun broke through the clouds and the mob cheered in celebration.

She did not wake quickly. She felt the rope around her neck even as she swam to consciousness through viscous heated pools of tar, suffocating and perishing with every breath. When Elsa finally realized that she was awake, she broke down into the most soft and wretched tears imaginable. She buried her face in her pillow and wept like a lost, forlorn and pitiable thing, just as she had when holding her frozen Anna in her arms.

It was unbearable. So many visions of a dead sister, of a future all dark and maleficent and empty of love, a future of violence and outrage, oh so much beauty lost in a blizzard of nightmare and fear.

Elsa could not seem to stop crying, never quite sure if her tears were for herself or for the sister she had so nearly lost. Neither could she immediately summon the resources necessary to crawl out of her bed and fulfill the promise she made.

So for a long time she sobbed, fearful and alone, until she could bear it no longer. Queen Elsa laboriously crawled out of bed, burning with sorrow and fever. She did not bother to fetch a robe for the short jaunt down the hallway. She made no sound in her bare feet down the polished floor even though she stumbled in her weariness, her vision clouded and unsure.

She finally came upon Anna's door, and it had been left partially open, and that slim space spoke of promises kept, of faith restored. That space between door and frame was welcome enough, and the unsteady Queen slipped through without knocking.

She could not hesitate now; her _need _was all-powerful and consuming. Anna seemed deeply asleep on the far side of the bed, facing the doorway, her face gentle and soft and partially shadowed. Elsa walked to the bedside, pulled down the covers, and slid in between the cool sheets. She put her head down on the empty pillow that had been waiting there, and only then did Anna's eyes flutter open.

No words were spoken. Anna looked at her, and then she smiled even as she reached out her hands, pulling her grieving sister closer. Elsa let herself be tucked all soft and gentle along the warm curves of Anna's body, her head pillowed on Anna's shoulder, her arm over Anna's waist.

And Anna pressed her lips to Elsa's forehead, in a kiss that was a caress, infinitely long and tender.

Heavy with sorrow and devotion, Elsa was cradled like a babe in Anna's arms, and between one breath and another she fell back asleep.

It was a combination of light and warmth that brought Elsa back to wakefulness. If she had other dreams, they escaped her as she opened her eyes.

Elsa could scarcely believe the loveliness of waking in Anna's arms. They had shifted slightly in the night, until Anna slept entirely on her back with an arm over Elsa's hips, and Elsa slept draped over her whole body, her leg between Anna's, her hand clutching Anna's waist. The intimacy of it brought a flush to her cheeks and she made to move away, but Anna would have none of it. The moment Elsa began to move she felt Anna's arm tighten on hers, and then her voice in her ear, "Oh no, you don't, Your Majesty. Not yet."

Elsa relaxed, but she couldn't quite summon the nerve to look into Anna's eyes. Given permission to enjoy the moment, she leaned into it with all the courage she could muster.

How strange was this aspect of courage, when it was the smallest and broadest of moments that truly tested the capacity of faith and conviction. Elsa reflected on her own courage, and knew that staying fully present and engaged in this precious moment with her sister was far harder than facing down the Duke's henchmen that day in her palace. It was so much easier to disengage, to run, and to react.

Ever mindful, wonderfully present, Elsa felt it when Anna's breath began to change. It was a slight alteration, a shade shallower than before, so Elsa finally drew back her head to look at Anna's face. Her eyes seemed almost stormy, and there was something vulnerable there as well that Elsa didn't quite understand.

"Thank you for keeping your promise, Elsa," Anna whispered, taking a tendril of Elsa's hair to tuck behind her ear.

Elsa nodded, for she didn't trust herself enough to speak.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Elsa shook her head.

"All right."

Elsa put her head back on Anna's shoulder, and felt Anna's arm grip her even tighter on her waist. Anna's other hand stroked Elsa's hair again before falling to grasp her elbow.

Never in her life had Elsa known such contentment. It didn't seem possible that each and every day could bring new heights of joy.

Yet Elsa felt a tiny shade of fear even in the midst of this communion, this bliss. It was a fear far different than the old and familiar terrors of her past, and it had begun to grow and swell in the last two days. It was so sharp and thin that Elsa could not summon the courage to name it; it hovered there, just beyond expression and reality.

"Talk to me, Anna," she begged lightly, speaking to the fabric of Anna's nightgown.

So Anna began to talk, to relate stories of her numerous scrapes and escapades, the ones involving suits of armour and blades practice, as well as her flubs in embroidery and cooking. She spoke of the friendships she made with the gallery paintings, and the many adventures she had shared with Joan of Arc.

Then she suddenly stopped talking, and her heartbeat was strange and fluttery, and Elsa drew back again in order to look at her, a far different fear clenching her lungs.

Her first glance erased all fear and replaced it with wonder.

The rising sun painted a halo about Anna's somewhat wild hair, so she appeared as an angel in truth as well as the angel of Elsa's salvation. Elsa found herself forgetting all about the strange heartbeat she had felt while she stared at Anna's lips, and her next battle was massive and silent, to keep herself from tasting those lips again, sampling their depth and sweetness.

And though she won that battle, and kept herself from kissing her sister with every fervent desire she possessed, she found herself naming her newest fear. It became so obvious it could be hidden no longer. It demanded recognition; it demanded to be realized in thought, if not yet in word aloud.

_I've fallen in love with Anna._

_My sister._

_Oh, god, what do I do?_

Anna was still gazing at her, and Elsa reminded herself that Anna's heart had hitched for a reason. She gladly latched on to the present moment, setting aside her startling revelation of wonder and fear, and asked, "What's wrong, pet?"

"I can barely understand it," Anna said slowly. "I mean, you've been back in my life for only a few days, but they've been such wonderful days that I find myself already forgetting what my life used to be like before you came back into it. How is it possible for the loneliness of thirteen years to be erased so easily?"

"Because it's necessary," Elsa replied. "If fear is our great enemy, then it will always be conquered by love. Why would we hold on to the pain of the past if the present moment is filled with such joy? I think it speaks beautifully of you as a person, Anna, that you can genuinely forgive and forget."

"I daydreamed of many things with you, Elsa, in those long years," Anna slowly admitted, her fingers tracing circles on Elsa's hip. "But the reality is so much better. It's so good, in fact, that every once in a while I wonder if I'm only dreaming all of this."

Elsa reached up and lightly tugged on Anna's hair. Anna lightly grimaced and then grinned. "Okay, okay, smartypants. Besides, if this was only a dream, I'd never want to wake up."

"Dreams are no good," Elsa said quietly, her thoughts turning momentarily back to the horrors of three nights running. "Reality is better. You are better."

"Why are you still having these nightmares, Elsa?" Anna asked quietly.

"I wish I knew," Elsa admitted. "I wish I wouldn't dream the awful things I do. I can only pray that it won't last much longer. Beyond that, there is little I can do."

"Do you suppose the trolls might be able to help you?"

Elsa couldn't help the shudder that rippled through her body, and she saw the surprise in Anna's eyes. "I'm sorry, Anna, but I would have a hard time trusting the trolls. I know they helped to save you, twice now, but at what cost? Tell me Anna, do you remember me using my power as a child?"

"No," Anna admitted. "I remember so many happy times together, outside building Olaf, and sledding in the snow. I remember that it very suddenly stopped."

"We built Olaf in the ballroom. We slid down the castle stairs. We skated in the halls. I built a million playgrounds of snow for you in nearly every room of the palace."

Anna's eyes grew wide. "You mean you used your magic in front of me?"

"On a nearly daily basis," Elsa said. "In fact, the night of the accident, you woke me up because the northern lights were particularly bright." She couldn't help but smile in memory. "I told you to go back to bed, but you said the sky's awake, so you were awake, so we had to play. You asked if I wanted to build a snowman. I couldn't refuse you, I never could. So we went to the ballroom, and we played one last time."

Anna's face was expectant, pleading. Elsa understood the unspoken request and continued relating the story. How they had scampered through drifts of snow, how they built Olaf together, and then skated with him on the icy floor. Her voice got slower when she drew nearer the moment everything changed.

"You began leaping from snow drift to drift, asking me to catch you, so I made pile after pile, but you were jumping so fast and high that I couldn't keep up, and then I – I slipped on the ice, and you leaped from the last huge drift and headed straight for the floor. I panicked, and the blast that was supposed to create a safe landing hit your head instead, and you fell unconscious to the ground."

Elsa couldn't stop now, not when the truth was finally coming out in its entirety, and it was like removing the last festering splinter that had been so deeply lodged in Elsa's heart. She relived the experience aloud, clutching her fallen sister, watching the streak of white appear in her hair, crying aloud for their parents. Somehow papa knew where to go. She had ridden with father, Anna with mother, and her fear and anxiety left a trail of ice behind their galloping horses.

Then they had arrived at the Valley of Living Rock, to receive the counsel of their eldest troll; he said that he could indeed remove the ice, and recommended to remove all memory of magic, to be safe. He spoke of fear being Elsa's greatest enemy, and warned her to learn to control her powers. The King agreed that they would keep it a secret from everyone from now on; they would close the gates, reduce the staff, and limit Elsa's contact with everyone. Including Anna.

The torrent of words finally ceased, and Elsa focused on Anna's face. She could not be surprised at the anger and anxiety mired therein. Elsa had had many years to despise her parents, years to grow into the role of protector and secret-keeper, becoming the good girl she always had to be. Anna now had to integrate this knowledge, and find its rightful place in her heart and memory. Elsa did not envy her the task.

Her next words still stunned the young Queen.

"So it really was all my fault," Anna murmured.

"No, Anna," Elsa said firmly, grasping Anna's elbow. "It was not. We were playing. We were having the time of our lives. I knew you then, just as I know you now. Your impulsive and fun-loving nature is what I so dearly love in you. Yes, you can be hasty at times, but I wouldn't change it, not even if it could erase that pivotal moment in our lives."

Anna didn't look quite convinced, so Elsa leaned over and held her face and kissed her on the cheek. When she withdrew she looked deep into Anna's distressed eyes and said, "We've passed through the storm, Anna. We're here, we're together again, and I truly believe we are stronger for what we've experienced. I love you with my whole heart, and I love you just the way you are."

Anna swallowed, and finally she nodded, her eyes red-rimmed. "Now, my princess," Elsa said brightly. "Today is going to be a great day. I believe you are giving Kristoff his sled today, right?"

Anna nodded, wiping brusquely at her eyes.

"Good. I've found a silver medallion for you to give to Sven, in his capacity as Chief Reindeer to the Official Arendelle Ice Master and Deliverer. Also, we are getting rid of both Prince Hans and the Duke of Weselton this morning, so that will be fantastic.

"And," Elsa continued, talking over her sister's opened mouth of delight, "I have a special surprise for you this afternoon. Well, for you and for the village. Make sure you're back in the forecourt around lunch!"

"A surprise for everyone?" Anna squealed. "What is it?"

"Silly bear, if I told you, then it wouldn't be a surprise!"

"Silly bear?"

"Would you prefer stinker?"

"I prefer pet." Anna blushed after she blurted out the words.

"Pet it is." Elsa leaned over to give Anna one last quick peck on the cheek, and then she squeezed Anna's hand. "Thank you for everything this morning, pet. I needed it."

"I needed it, too."

It was indescribably hard to leave the comfort of Anna's arms, even as she chastised herself for enjoying these stolen moments so very much. Could it be possible that her subconscious forced the dreams upon her because she wanted Anna's comfort so much?

It was an impossible riddle, but as Elsa returned to her chambers she reflected on the awful truth that had blazed into existence. She forced it into the front of the mind, there to confront it with all the bravery she could muster.

She had fallen completely, utterly, head-over-heels in love with Anna. The image of her sister filled every thought, every daydream. Thinking of the intimacy of their sleeping caused a most excruciating yet wondrous hunger to overtake her, profound in its depth, startling in intensity.

It was also terrifying in the extreme. She could feel the uncertainty and fear igniting the magic in her palms, and once again she wanted her gloves.

Was it only due to thirteen years of tightness and restraint that she resurrected her old mantra so easily?

_Get it together, Elsa. Control it. Don't feel._

_Don't feel._

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><p>See you Tuesday for the next instalment. I'll probably go to once a week postings after that, but I really want to share Chapter Eight.<p> 


	8. Chapter 8 - Stand My Ground

**Hello constant reader. Thanks for the fabulous reviews recently received, they are like candy, and I love it so very much! This update is early, but I'm feeling ill and I'm stuck at home, so I figured I might as well share. I gotta say, I'm personally proud of this one, so I hope you like it. The song title is "Stand My Ground" by Within Temptation. If you have never yet read one of my chapters listening to the music I recommend, please do so to this one, maybe on a second reading? It's best for the end of the chapter, you'll see why.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Eight – Stand my Ground<strong>

Anna stared at the closed door after Elsa had left her bedroom. She sat in her bed and looked at the rumpled sheets, the used spare pillow, and grimaced. She had nearly lost it this morning. There were a few times when Elsa had looked at her with such raging _something_ in her eyes that Anna nearly spilled out every secret desire over her hasty tongue.

But she was just being foolish and silly again. Yes, Elsa had told her, quite a few times now, most recently just a few minutes ago, that she loved Anna with all her heart. It took some effort to remind herself that Elsa meant only the love natural among family, the love that was accepted between sisters and friends. It didn't mean anything more, and Anna should spend no more time mooning about it.

She couldn't quite convince herself, though. The hugs, yes, they were mostly sisterly. The sweet kisses on cheeks and hands, those were a shade more than sisterly. Sleeping together, that wasn't quite sisterly, or was it? What about lying with her head in Elsa's lap as the sunshine caressed their skin through the dappled leaves of the willow tree?

There were two memories that confused Anna above all. The first was the brief kiss that Elsa had initiated, and it had been the first kiss of Anna's life, and would be forever precious if only for that fact. She had already reflected on that kiss so often she was nearly astonished the memory was still intact; surely it could not stand this repeated attention to detail?

The other was that moment in the hallway yesterday morning when they had separated for the day, and Anna just couldn't help looking back at her sister, to see the lovely perfection so achingly personified in the Queen. Only to see Elsa's eyes looking right back at her, her gaze fiery, roaring it was, with a passion and longing that made Anna's knees quake. Even then she called herself a fool for imagining things that weren't real, just like all those adventures with Joan-the-painting, and she had forced herself to bow to her sister.

There was no way, really, that someone like Elsa could fall in love with someone like Anna, even if Anna's feelings hadn't already somehow crystallized into fact in the past two days.

Wait.

Fact?

_Oh, god. I'm in love with Elsa._

Was that even possible between sisters? Did she even know what romantic love was? She had only two examples to compare it to: a couple hours with Hans, and a couple days with Kristoff. She recognized now that she had been more enamoured of the idea of Hans than Hans himself. Like seriously, those sideburns were eventually going to be a deal-breaker for sure. Kristoff could often be quite crass and blunt, and he certainly wasn't royalty, but that didn't mean anything these days. She knew that he cared for her a great deal, and she often felt the strong interest in his eyes when they spent time together. It would be very easy to enter a romantic relationship with the young man, except for one thing.

Kristoff was not her sister.

And it was every thought of Elsa that caused her heart to hiccup in its tracks, to make her palms sweaty, to lead her to fabricate reasons to be together, and then to imagine in the dark swatches of the night what it would feel like to really completely kiss those amazingly kissable lips, to sink into every feeling and sensation that was Elsa.

But then she looked down again at the empty bed and shook her head more fiercely.

Forget it, Anna. She doesn't love you like that.

It was quite a stern lecture she levied against herself before rising from her bed. If only she truly believed it.

She dressed in a light summer dress of varying shades of green, quickly changing the bandage on her arm. A knock came on the door just as she was finishing up, and it was Gerda there, bearing a silver medallion on the corner of a breakfast tray. Anna was struck by Elsa's attention to detail and her commitment to promises made. When Anna glanced with distaste at the tray (for it was mute evidence that she would be eating alone again), Gerda explained before Anna had to ask that Elsa was already closeted with Kai, making the last arrangements for the safe departure of the visiting dignitaries.

Anna requested pen and paper and scribbled a note for Kristoff to wait in his inn, that she was coming to spend the day with him and Sven, and that he wasn't supposed to leave without her. She wolfed down her breakfast and hurried to the sled warehouse. It didn't take much wheedling and smiling to convince them to put a huge bow on the sled, and to man-handle it to the docks where she wanted to surprise the young man.

She raced off to the inn next and found Kristoff waiting for her in the common room, her crumpled note in his hands. He looked cleaner and more handsome than ever before, and she smiled at the care he must have taken in washing and dressing up. It took a bit of effort to convince him that it was perfectly natural that she should want him to wear a blindfold and wait for her to come get him.

He grumbled but agreed, and looked only slightly ridiculous sitting there with the blindfold over his eyes, Olaf trying to keep him company. Anna then fetched Sven from his stall, putting the beautiful silver medallion around his neck and leading him to the square. The reindeer had spent far too much time around people, and had the most human look of joy when he saw it, and pranced about for a moment before she whispered for him to calm down and act natural.

Then back to the inn, to grab Kristoff's hand and race him down to the docks, and now her heart was as happy and full as it had ever been, for this moment of anticipation was so very sweet. And yes, she did sort of lead him right into a pole, but she couldn't really be faulted for that.

The reveal when she took off his blindfold was everything she could have wished for. Sven sauntered up to the sled as Kristoff's jaw dropped open. "I owe you a sled," she said.

"Are you serious?" he asked, wonder and disbelief in every tone.

"Yes!" she squealed, infected by his excitement. "And it's the latest model."

"No, I can't accept this," he said.

She folded her arms and mock-glared at him. "You have to. No returns, no exchanges. Queen's orders. She's named you the Official Arendelle Ice Master and Deliverer." Sven's medallion glinted with the sunlight.

"What? That's not a thing."

"Dooh, sure it is. And, it even has a cup holder. Do you like it?"

"Like it? I love it!" he cried out, grabbing her by the waist and whirling her in the air, and it was so much better than when Hans had whirled her around the lighthouse, because true friendship came with its own depth of feeling, and she never felt closer to Kristoff than that moment.

But then he blurted out that he could kiss her, and sputtered out all sorts of nonsense to try to recover, and all of it was warmth and anticipation in Anna's heart. She shunted all thoughts of her sister to the back of her mind as she briefly kissed him on the cheek and said, "We may."

So he bent down and kissed her, and it was so very different from Elsa's brief kiss. At least she was allowed to truly experience it, so she kissed Kristoff from one side and then the other, and hugged him tight when the kiss was over. Again there was the warm and chewy glow in her heart, but still that jarring difference remained, and she didn't understand what it meant.

She had no time to ponder that difference, for they were both startled at the bell tolling the noon hour, and the town crier came out to the docks. "Queen Elsa invites the people of Arendelle to join her in the castle forecourt for an afternoon of music, entertainment, and skating. The gates are now open, and she bids you join her as you wish."

Every person doing business or walking along the docks had suddenly stopped everything to listen to the crier's message, and the moment it ended a most beautiful buzzing of excitement and anticipation rose from the crowd.

"Did you know about this?" Kristoff asked as she grabbed his hand and pulled him down the street, Olaf and Sven following behind. (Olaf having retrieved his nose after sneezing it into Sven's mouth – an act the fastidious Anna might have found more distasteful before she saw Kristoff constantly sharing carrots with his reindeer friend. And when she said sharing, she meant _sharing._)

"Nope, but she told me there was going to be a surprise. Oooh, this is so exciting!"

Everyone around the princess apparently felt the same way, and she saw many a smile levied in her direction as well as everyone scurried around, getting skates from their homes and hurrying to the castle forecourt.

Queen Elsa was standing in the middle of the forecourt, between two water fountains, dressed in her favourite ice dress. She looked exquisitely beautiful and welcoming to the crowds entering the court, and she happened to be looking right at Anna as she walked through the gates, holding Kristoff's hand. Could it be only her imagination that there was a very brief measure of surprise and shock on Elsa's face? Whatever the emotion had been, it was there for only a second, and then the Queen only smiled, so generous and warm that it was not-regal-at-all.

A crowd of excited people had already flowed into the forecourt, including palace servants and members of the guard. "Are you ready?" Queen Elsa cried out.

There was an outburst of clapping and excited cries of anticipation and agreement. Elsa bared one ankle and tapped her foot firmly on the ground. Sheets of ice bloomed from her heels, racing in every direction. The exclamations of surprise and delight continued as the people felt the ice appear under their feet, and then everyone cried aloud in greater wonder as delicate pillars of ice surrounded the walls of the court.

Elsa lifted her too beautiful hands and gracefully urged the fountains into the most exquisite forms of ice, and then with a flourish of her wrists streamers of cold erupted in the air like fireworks, bathing the people with a gentle snow.

Kai and Gerda wasted no time whatsoever in skating together, giggling as they swung into the forms, the audience clapping in appreciation of their finesse and twirls as they took a bow.

Anna couldn't wait to share the joy of the moment with her sister, so she squeezed Kristoff's hand and abruptly left him behind as she slipped and slid her way over to Elsa, nearly falling into Elsa's arms at the last.

Elsa caught her, and held her up, that incredibly warm smile again on her face. "I like the open gates," Anna said, grasping on to Elsa's arms. Her heart opened wide at the firmness of Elsa's touch, and once again she tumbled deep down the slope of open-eyed adoration.

"We are never closing them again," Elsa promised. Then she looked down at Anna's feet and made yet another of those heart-melting graceful flourishes of hand and wrist, and Anna felt the skates pop into existence under her boots.

Elsa stood back to look at her handiwork, and she just wouldn't stop being so adorable; she clasped her hands to her heart and looked at Anna with frank appreciation, even as Anna stammered, "They're beautiful, Elsa, but you know I don't skate…"

Elsa didn't even allow her to finish before she grasped her with those delightfully cool hands and began to swing her onto the ice, saying, "C'mon, you can do it!" Anna shivered at the sound of Elsa's voice, for there had been a low and nearly indiscernible growl of pleasure as she spoke, and it thrummed deep and low inside the princess, causing yet another of those incredible lengthenings of heart and stomach and spine that she so fully equated with her sister's addictive touch.

Anna held tight to Elsa's strong arms as she protested one last time. Momentum pulled them slightly apart, and Anna grabbed hold of Elsa's hands, trying with all her might not to fall down and embarrass herself in front of her sister. Elsa slid closer to her so she could clasp their hands together ever so firm and soft. Anna grinned as she saw Kristoff skating closer to them, holding on to Sven's tail, and she again slipped precariously on the ice until Olaf suddenly appeared, pushing her up from behind.

"Thanks, Olaf," Elsa exclaimed, and oh that joy in her voice was so very contagious, and Anna felt her smile could get no wider, surely there was no more room on her face for this grin that was the bestest grin she had ever grinned in her life.

So they skated, hand in hand, over the icy stones of the court, and Elsa took so much of her attention that she scarcely heard Olaf encouraging her, saying, "Glide and pivot, glide and pivot."

The afternoon was magical, and not just in regards to Elsa's powers. It was the first time in forever that Anna had seen her sister so open and laughing, and in public, no less! It was incredible to hold her hands again and again as they skated around the villagers, and the eyes on them were all indulgent and warm, the chatter surrounding them was appreciative and inspiring. Elsa created butterflies of ice for the people to admire, and they trailed snowflakes behind them. She also created soft piles of snow for all the children, ready to be formed into new and endearing approximations of Olaf, and he was delighted at each and every one, dispensing carrots from a sack to adorn the new faces.

After a couple hours of skating, the palace placed big kettles of hot chocolate and glogg alongside platters of grilled fishes and meats, breads and cakes, and chocolate and cookies.

It was the celebration denied to the people the night of the coronation, and Elsa made sure the recompense was complete and full. She cleared a section of ice so she could stand and receive anyone who wished to meet her and speak to her in person. Anna flitted in and out of the crowd, sometimes standing next to the Queen and talking to everyone, sometimes running off for yet another mug of hot chocolate, bringing back an offering of a truffle or a cookie for her sister.

And as the long afternoon began to settle into dusk, Elsa revealed one last surprise. By then hundreds of people had come and gone through the court, eating and skating and dancing to the music played by the palace band. As a clear and glorious twilight painted the nearby peaks in every shade of red, peach and gold, Queen Elsa once again stood between the two frozen fountains. The ice retreated from the forecourt and icy chairs and benches popped into existence instead.

And she lifted her hands, and Anna could only gape in amazement, just like every person around her, at the fireworks of snow that burst into the gloaming sky. They hissed through the air just like the great crackers that came from China, and in the sky they burst into patterns of streaking stars, and then pops and hisses of exploding snow rings, wider and stronger with each successive burst. The townspeople clapped and cheered again and again as the snowy creations painted the sky in endless variations of streamers and exploding globes of light.

Anna and Kristoff stood nearby, and his arm was comfortably warm over her shoulders, but her eyes were only for Elsa, for the pale expanse of skin over her wrists as she lifted her arms in yet another massive detonation, for the flush in her cheeks and the puffing breath that was the only indication of magical exertion. She had no idea how Elsa managed to create the sonic booms that so cheered the children, nor how the snow changed colour in the sky from crimson and emerald to splendiferous gold.

As time passed and the magical detonations only increased in size and intensity there was something else in Elsa's face, some tightening of her jaw perhaps, that whispered of power being stretched and thinned, taking life-force instead of just effort and energy.

And because Anna was now staring so completely at Elsa, ignoring the spectacle overhead, she sensed that Kristoff was looking between her and the Queen. He lifted his arm from her shoulder and whispered, "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I just hope Elsa is."

"You worry about her a lot, don't you?" he said, and the sentiment was mostly curious with the slightest tinge of something else. Anna looked up at him.

"Yes," she replied simply. "It's what sisters do."

"Hmm."

Anna ignored his last sound and broke eye contact with the labouring queen just long enough to look around the court. Every other face was upturned to the wonders above, save one.

Sera Avundir was also looking at the queen, her face thoughtful and drawn. Anna hadn't even known that the Royal Physician had joined the party. She must have felt Anna's eyes, for Sera looked right at Anna, then over to the Queen, and then back to Anna.

It was a message clear as the snow that drifted above them. Anna nodded, gently disengaged from Kristoff and drew close to the Queen. Elsa had just finished another deafening rocket of ice and snow, and her breath was indeed heaving in her chest, her eyes strained and weary, her cheeks abnormally flushed. She looked surprised to see Anna right there in front of her.

"You don't have to prove anything more, Elsa," Anna quietly said, trying not to invade Elsa's space or touch her unnecessarily. She had no idea right now of the possible strain, and she didn't want to upset her sister or break the bonds Elsa held so precariously over her magic. "It's been a fantastic day. If you're tired, we can be done."

Queen Elsa's breath still came bright and fast, and Anna beheld tiny droplets of sweat upon her brow. Her eyes finally softened, and she dipped her head in an agreement so slight it was nearly indiscernible.

Anna hadn't known that Kristoff had also drawn close until he suddenly shouted, "Three cheers for Queen Elsa! Hip, hip!"

And the crowd roared in a delighted, "Hooray!" The remaining two cheers were deadened by the storm of applause, whistles and yells that reverberated through the square.

Both the Queen and the Princess looked at the young man, gratitude in their eyes. "You're very perceptive, Kristoff," Elsa said quietly. "Thank you."

"Anna noticed you first," Kristoff said as the people began to stream away from the square, still chatting in excitement and comparing the various "snow-works" that had been the most loud and impressive.

Anna blushed to hear Kristoff say in simple words what duty and privilege lay foremost in Anna's heart. She noticed everything about the Queen now, and she began to wonder with a squirming in her stomach if Kristoff noticed that, too. He had spent far too much time with friends who were love experts, and could be eerily insightful at times.

And Elsa's eyes were on her, in appreciation and softness, and she extended her elbow to Anna, asking without words. Anna answered without words, hooking arms with her older sister, and only then did she sense the completeness of the Queen's exhaustion, the strain of muscles and willpower and breath. Anna knew that Elsa had not slept the night through for the past four nights and had far too little appetite when they ate together. Not to mention the strain of being friendly and engaging with hundreds of people; a task that could not have been easy for the forcibly introverted girl. Together they slowly made their way from the square, with many a nod of farewell, and smiles of thanks for well-wishes, with Kristoff, Olaf and Sven never far behind.

Anna halted momentarily at the palace gates, and tugged Olaf over to hold hands with Elsa. She quickly walked up to Kristoff, kissed him on the cheek, and wished him good night. He gave her a breathless and bear-tight hug, lifting her slightly from the ground before releasing her. Anna then scanned the crowd quickly, but did not see the physician again.

Not that she needed Sera Avundir's admonition. Anna already knew how greatly taxed Elsa had become, and she understood that great care was now necessary to restore her.

She turned just in time to see Elsa clear her face of some emotion, and she deliberately took Elsa's arm once more and escorted her sister into the castle, leaving Olaf, Kristoff and Sven behind with a last smile over her shoulder. With every step she felt the keenness of Kristoff's eyes, up until the palace doors were shut behind them.

And with every step she felt the halting hesitating step of her beloved sister, revealing a vulnerability rarely shown to anyone. Fierce pride lit Anna's heart at the trust thus displayed, and she slowly escorted Elsa to her chambers.

The palace servants had enjoyed their leisure, but they had also returned earlier to the castle with a mind to serve the royal sisters. Brackets of fat candles provided plenty of light in Elsa's bedroom, and her chamber was readied for retiring. The Queen was almost stumbling as they came through the door, and Anna guided her to the bed.

"What a wonderful day, Elsa," she said quietly, sitting her sister down on the corner of the bed. The paleness of Elsa's cheeks frightened her a bit, especially with two high and bright spots of colour in her cheeks.

"Do you think they liked it?" Elsa murmured, slipping off her shoes.

"It was amazing," Anna replied, standing behind Elsa so she could gently tease apart the heavy braid. "You are amazing."

"Prince Hans and the Duke are gone."

"Good riddance to bad rubbish."

Elsa lightly chuckled, but even that sound was fraught with exhaustion. "Did you get enough to eat, Elsa?" Anna asked. She waited to hear something, but only saw Elsa slowly shake her head.

"Not really, Anna." There was that truth that Elsa promised.

"Shall I ring for the butler?" Anna asked, forcibly injecting levity into her voice. She knew it, she just knew that Elsa had been pre-occupied with meeting people, and Anna had only brought her cookies and chocolates like the idiot she was. Couldn't she just grow up enough to take care of her sister the way she deserved?

"Sweetheart, I'm so tired. I promise I'll eat a good breakfast."

Anna swallowed down the protest that instinctually crested over her tongue. Her thoughts felt incredibly cluttered and her fingers were clumsy as well as she tried to unravel Elsa's braid. She started running a comb through the platinum tresses, entranced as always with the frank perfection that was every part of the Queen of Arendelle. She did not want to rush this task, but she was very aware that her sister could be falling asleep at any moment.

The tight ball of fear she felt for her sister's safety was combined most strangely with the tender act of combing her hair; Anna felt immensely protective and even a bit breathless again with Elsa's proximity. The scent of her hair was miraculous, as was the cool slide of the ice dress Elsa wore.

It was that dress that Anna pondered next. She had managed not to get tripped up in the long cape that trailed behind the shimmering dress as they walked through the castle, but she wasn't sure how comfortable Elsa would be sleeping in it. She suddenly knelt in front of Elsa to ask, and her heart broke to see unexpected and unfathomable pain in Elsa's eyes. "Elsa, heart, what is it?" Anna asked, taking Elsa's hand.

"I'm scared of sleeping," Elsa murmured, turning her head away. "I wanted to exhaust myself, to push beyond all my boundaries, for I can't bear to keep dreaming like I have. I can't keep seeing you dead, Anna. If you die in my dreams tonight, it will break me."

The words were spoken with frankness and fear, making them all the more terrible. Anna ached at the despair in Elsa's voice, and feared for the lengths to which Elsa dared go in order to keep the dreams from coming.

After all this, would it even be enough? Anna believed Elsa when she said it would break her. Anna believed she would be long undone already if she saw the same horrors night after night. The slightest thought of Elsa dead caused an earthquake of sorrow and loss in Anna's tender heart.

"What can I do?" Anna asked, rubbing her thumb over Elsa's hand.

Elsa only looked up, with mute exhaustion and a question she could not ask aloud, but she didn't need to ask, not this time. Anna kissed Elsa's hand and said, "Let me sleep with you, Elsa. I want to be here, right here, in case you dream. Please let me stay."

Relief in her eyes and face as Elsa nodded, and then she closed her eyes, scrunching them tight as she deeply inhaled and exhaled, the cape of her ice dress flittering into nothingness, and the very fabric of the dress rippling and changing until they became simple but beautiful sleeping clothes.

"Wow," Anna breathed. "Seriously? That's how you do that?"

Elsa opened her eyes and panted with the effort, still smiling at Anna's words. She squeezed Anna's hand and breathed, "Don't move."

Anna opened her mouth to protest but she gaped in sensation instead, as the very threads of her dress lifted from her skin, rippled in icy intent, and then transformed before her very eyes in a cascade of ice and snow. The sensation was incredibly luxurious, like being bathed in moonbeams and stardust. Soon Anna was arrayed in a gorgeous nightgown, all sea-foam green and dappled with sparkles of crystal.

Elsa slumped when she was finished, though she stayed upright through sheer force of will, it seemed. There was a wan yet triumphant smile on her face as she looked at Anna, and Anna dared not chastise her for expending yet more magic.

In this wondrous moment of candlelight and magic Elsa was every inch a Queen; she had made a choice and stood her ground, and Anna loved her for it.

"Well, that solves that problem," Anna said softly. "Thank you, Elsa. It's beautiful."

"You're beautiful."

The sentiment was so simply and honestly given that Anna's heart clenched yet again. She couldn't help but blush, even as she tried to look motherly and stern. "Time for sleep, dearest," she said, tugging gently at Elsa's hands to get her to lie down on the bed. Even in the depths of her exhaustion Elsa took to her bed with sinuous grace. She lay down, facing the middle of the bed, leaving the far side for Anna. So Anna tucked her in, and moved among the room, blowing out candles, until a warm and expectant darkness was revealed in the Queen's bedchamber. Then Anna crept along the side of the bed to get in on the other side, her own heart tripping in irregularity; a combination of nervousness and excitement and her heart condition.

She couldn't believe that Elsa's eyes were still open, but they were. She was obviously waiting for Anna, so Anna slipped in between the sheets. She had scarcely found her own pillow when Elsa shuffled up beside her. "Bless you, Anna," Elsa whispered as her head found Anna's shoulder, and her hand went over Anna's stomach.

What an amazing bookend for her day, and one she could not have imagined only eighteen hours ago. To be here yet again, in a mere switch of bedrooms, was delicious beyond words.

Despite her exhaustion it seemed to take some time for Elsa to settle down. Anna kissed the top of her head and held her close.

For her part, Anna was freakishly awake now, and it took time and effort to control her breathing and her irregular heart rate. Right there before her eyes was an expanse of cool skin, sloping from neck to collarbone, and it looked extremely tasty, like the best and creamiest vanilla ice cream. An irrational desire to taste that skin became the locus of Anna's next internal battle, which she valiantly fought for an expanse of time that became so vast she could hardly believe that her birthday had not come and gone yet again.

In the end she could not conquer her own desires, and as she felt Elsa's breathing slow down and deepen, Anna dared to place her lips, ever so delicately, upon that sweet juncture of skin between neck and shoulder.

Her sleeping queen moved fractionally closer to her, and made the most attractive sound imaginable, something crossed between a sigh and a moan with a measure of ecstasy in the mix. Anna replayed that sound in her head again and again, and soon it became anchored inside her, tethered with the ball of hope and joy in her stomach and that precious elongation of her spine, and upon every access point that merged touch with sound was the sensation of Elsa in her arms.

Anna used these precious moments wisely, to study the play of moonlight on her sister's skin, to smell the scent arising from Elsa's hair, to feel the refreshing frost of Elsa's cool clothes, to even count their heartbeats in an effort to see how greatly hers had been altered. That last measurement was the deepest and most wonderful, for she dared to move her hand to rest on top of Elsa's ice-covered breast, and there seek the rhythmic dance of Elsa's heart, to bind it forever with her own.

Only then did Anna relax enough to drift ever so peacefully into sleep.

Some time later, she could not know for sure, this treasured sleep was suddenly fractured by Elsa's cries, the flailing of her limbs bringing them both out of slumber.

Elsa's body convulsed, and she squirmed from side to side, and then finally woke up entirely, facing Anna with an expression of unadulterated horror and fear. She started to draw back, to push away, and Anna did the only thing she could think to do, which was to entangle Elsa's legs with her own, and hold Elsa's face with her hands, forcing their eyes to smash into each other.

"I'm okay, Elsa," Anna said, boring into Elsa's frantic eyes. "I'm here, I'm alive. Everything is going to be okay."

And her dearest sister clutched at Anna's arms, then folded her arms around her back, squeezing her hard and tight. Without a word of warning Elsa began to sob, louder and more terrifying than Anna had yet encountered in all their days together; it was a cry of loss and bleakness so raw it grated on her ears and broke her altered heart.

Anna held on, embracing her sister fully, tucking Elsa along every curve and crevice of her body, their thighs hard against each other, breast to breast and heart to heart.

But the sobbing grew worse, until a great and wrenching scream _unfolded_ from Elsa's throat, and once the scream entered the bedroom it magnified to that of the roaring of enormous icy dragons, jaws agape to reave life from body and soul.

And in the wake of the scream came a silence even more deep and terrible, and it pressed into Anna's eardrums with fire and fury, demolishing all her reason, all her senses.

And for the scariest minute of Anna's life, Elsa did not breathe. Her heart was still, her body quiescent. Her eyes were open and glassy, mirroring a horror that was too great to be expressed in word.

Only one recourse remained to the stalwart princess, and she employed it without thought or decision.

Anna took Elsa's face in her strong and worn hands, and she looked deep into eyes that reflected the blackest abyss of hope, and she covered Elsa's mouth with her own.

This was _nothing_ like the kiss that came before.

One second, possibly two, passed in softness and surprise.

Then Elsa _erupted._

Her cool hands encircled Anna's waist and shoulders, and she crushed Anna to her, wrapping one leg around Anna's knee and drawing her so close that there was not a space between them. Anna opened her mouth in shock and surprise and Elsa there dove, running her tongue along Anna's bottom lip before thrusting it inside, even as her hard thigh parted Anna's legs.

Anna gasped as something ignited in that deep and secret place near the base of her spine, both warm and tight, that pressure between her legs she could not have imagined nor described. Elsa kissed her again and again, and still hot tears eked their way down Elsa's cheeks, scorching Anna's skin.

Elsa lifted ever so fractionally, only to tilt Anna's head and kiss her lips from another angle, her mouth so firm, the pressure and intimacy firing every one of Anna's nerves. She was insatiable, starving, feasting on Anna's lips as if she was nigh on perishing of famine, and it was a love-hunger to match every secret wish of Anna's heart. Elsa's need was so raw and urgent that Anna could barely respond to her, though her heart ached to crack open and reveal the depth of her love for her sister.

And Anna had to lift her head, she had to cry aloud to gain her breath with the beauty and agony of it, the radiance of the soul-fire that wrapped them both in cords strong and tight, and in the moment she broke the kiss in rapture unending, Elsa locked eyes with her once more.

The self-loathing and panic in those eyes scraped Anna's nerves raw.

Without warning, Elsa bolted from the bed, wrenched open the door and disappeared beyond sight.

Anna had no idea that reflexes honed through blades practice could come in so incredibly handy.

For not two seconds after Elsa broke away, Anna was upon her heels, and only experience warned her not to shout after her sister and thereby alert the entire castle and perhaps bring upon a snowy apocalypse. She had no idea of the time, save for the blackness that polluted all the hallways and corridors, testifying of the witching hour of the night.

Elsa's gown glowed blue and bright, fracturing shadows, making them bleed.

Anna followed.

First over, and then up, and up; Elsa was charging up the stairs that led to the bell tower, and Anna blessed all the gods of the universe for so directing this frantic flight, because there was only one way up this tower, and thus only one way down.

But even Anna could not comprehend the scene that awaited her as she broke upon the final threshold, for Elsa had leaped to an open casement, and stood only a hairs-breadth away from a dizzying drop to the flagstones below!

And once again Anna acted on impulse alone, burying the awful fear in her heart, and she caught Elsa's hand and yanked her down from the windowsill, down to the flagged stones and to safety.

Elsa crumpled with her arms tight around her body, to the cool chiselled tiles she sank, her forehead colliding hard with the ground, and the sound of her sorrow echoed 'round the bell chamber. "I can't," she cried, repeating the words over and over again, "I can't, I can't, I can't."

And there the Queen of Arendelle finally broke apart; brought lower than low, vanquished by an adversary who ravaged her mind, for against the specters of night-terrors she had no weapon or defense.

And there she wept, sobbing and crying as if her heart was truly torn asunder, her soul shredded apart and sold to the highest bidders, each piece of it to wander the globe forever in the search of true love, finding nothing except this, this loss, this emptiness, this abscess of hope.

To Anna's everlasting chagrin there was nothing she could do to stem the tide, for the Queen responded not to her frantic hands, nor to her words, nor to the fervent kisses placed on the crown of her head.

The nightmare of her life and Anna's death had utterly consumed her, and spat out this empty skin upon the flagstones.

And Princess Anna of Arendelle was the one chosen to bear witness, to testify of this limitless agony of remorse and shame and loss, and as the cold summer night crept ever closer to dawn Anna found herself upon the very edge of her own sanity and hope. Never before had she encountered any person or thing that could so thwart her desires, never before had she been stymied in all her efforts to engage and inspire and overcome. Queen Elsa cried and sobbed on the solitary flagstones of the highest point of the castle, and Anna could do nothing to save her. All she could do was gather the queen in her arms, hold her tight, and share as much of the burden as was possible.

It was the most fearful lesson Anna had yet encountered in her short and stunted life. The seconds were like days, and the hours were like years, and ever and anon she waited, hearing the soulful and agonizing cries.

Until at last a faint bleed of indigo appeared on the edge of the mountain-fractured horizon, and Anna was faint with exhaustion and cold, and Elsa seemed to have finally lapsed into a trembling slumber. The Princess sat with her back against the bone-numbing chill of quarried stone, Elsa's body in her lap still shuddering.

Anna's faith was tested, in a task of endurance she had hoped never to encounter, but the sun's dawning rays proved her loyalty and faith, for to the last Anna of Arendelle had stood her ground.

* * *

><p><strong>For you, dear readers. I hope to hear from you, let me know if you liked it.<strong>


	9. Chapter 9 - A Thousand Years

**Chapter Nine – A Thousand Years**

"Here, set her here."

"You, fetch water and start it boiling. Shoo, the rest of you. Anna, you stay. Sit there. I'll attend to you as soon as I can."

"What's wrong with her? She's burning up!"

…

"Put that blade away, trainee, before I punch you in the face. No one is going to bleed Elsa. Where's Sera Avundir?"

"Bleeding is a time-honoured medical technique, Your Highness. You see, it balances the humours of the body…"

"If it was appropriate, don't you think Sera would have done it already? Step away, sir. Right now."

…

"There is nothing else to do, Your Highness. She isn't responding like she did the last time she was sick. I've tried everything I can think of."

"Then think of something else, Sera!"

"Please, Princess. You must care for yourself as well. Your own fever is too great, you took such a chill up on the tower. Even your heart…"

"_Fuck_ my heart! Elsa is my _life!_"

"Princess Anna, one way or another, it will be over soon for Queen Elsa. The fever must break, or Queen Elsa will die. You must prepare yourself for the worst, and you must get the rest and care you yourself need."

"Sera, please. I can't lose Elsa again. I just can't."

…

"I don't want to leave you, Anna. You've worn yourself out looking after the Queen, and in the last three days you have become sicker than ever. I can't go."

"Please, Kristoff. You're the only one who can save him."

"Who is going to save you? Dammit, Anna, you're not the only one in love with someone you can't have!"

"What did you say?!"

"Anna, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have… I just…"

"You're right."

"…"

"But my love for Elsa will not diminish the love I have for you. You are the dearest friend a girl could ask for. If things were different…"

"Don't say it, Anna. Let's leave it where it is. Please."

"I'm scared, Kristoff. Elsa's power is fading right before us. She is dying, and Olaf is dying right along with her. Please, get him to safety."

"Will you at least promise to obey the physicians? Swear to me, right now!"

"I swear it, Kristoff, I'll obey the physicians. I'm going to get well. Elsa is going to get well. And we're not going to lose Olaf, either. I need you to trust me."

"All right then. I'll take him with me right now. If we hurry, we'll make it to the mountains. I'm sure the cold and the snow will restore him, or at least keep him alive, unless..."

"Don't even say it, Kristoff. I'm not going to lose Elsa, and we're not going to lose Olaf, either. Get him to safety. When Elsa wakes, she'll fix him again. He'll get his flurry back. Go. Go now."

…

"Do you think she can hear me when I talk to her, Sera?"

"I don't know, Princess. But at this point it can't hurt to try. And seeing as you will not stay in your own chambers, I'll have a bed brought in here for you. Your Highness, drink this tonic, and then you must get some rest. Your infection is getting worse."

"Sera, you do realize that if I lose Elsa, I lose everything, don't you?"

"My dear princess, I know that's how you feel right now. But how would you honour your sister's legacy after her death if you forswore your own health and happiness? This very moment is where true royalty is created, Anna. Please, look at yourself as if through your sister's eyes. She would want happiness for you, not despair."

"I love her, Sera."

"I know…"

"_Listen_ to me, Sera. I. Love. Her. She has become everything to me. Do you really think that I can go on without her?"

"You can if you must. I know that much about you. Your strength will come when you need it most. Princess, the Bishop has come. It's time for the rites."

…

"It's just you and me now, Elsa. I made everyone else leave. If this is going to be our last time together, I won't let you slip away without telling you how I feel. Even if you can't hear me. I'm going to say it because it deserves to be said. I promised you truth, Elsa, so here goes."

*cough*cough*

"I love you, Elsa. I love you more than life itself. I want to be with you for a thousand years."

*cough*

"No, that's not good enough. Elsa, I know I shouldn't, I know it's wrong, but I just can't help it. Ever since you came back into my life I have felt something change between us. I just wasn't strong enough to admit it. But now there's no more time.

"I'm in love with you, Elsa."

*cough*

"You can't leave me, Elsa. I need you. Oh god, Elsa, I can't live without you. I love you too damn much. I'll do anything if you just promise to stay. I'll make a gift of my heart for you; you can have it always and forever, if you want it, Elsa, and I'll understand even if you don't. Just come back. Come back to me."

…

The first indication of consciousness came in the coolness of a damp cloth on Elsa's forehead. Her shaky attempt at wakefulness held on to that sensation, and to the fingers entwined with hers. It was a gargantuan task to wrench her eyes open, to claw away the lethargy that entombed her, and after the passage of a thousand years, she finally was able to do so.

She was propped up with pillows on a strange bed. There was very little light in the unfamiliar room, and gauzy shadows were cast on the face that encompassed all of Elsa's sight.

The look of relief on Anna's face was palpable and argent. She squeezed Elsa's hand and smiled, low and dear.

Then she turned her head and violently coughed and coughed into the sleeve of her nightdress. Her face was pale when it swivelled back into the Queen's sight.

"Anna," Elsa croaked, alarm ringing strong in her breast. She wanted to say more, but she felt so very frail.

Anna's smile broadened even as her eyes reddened. Elsa was surprised to see tears gather at the corners of her eyes, to trickle down her cheeks. She wanted to lean over and wipe those tears away, but she could command no such compliance from her body. Her muscles felt dipped in lead, her limbs were great sea anchors. She had never known such languor, such resistance.

Weak.

Depleted.

"Elsa," Anna said, barely above a whisper. With her free hand she stroked Elsa's cheek, and tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear. Her fingers were like fire on Elsa's skin.

"What's wrong?" Elsa asked, shocked to discover she could barely speak.

And the love-light of her life burst into shaky tears, even as Elsa lost the tenuous grip she had on reality, and slipped away again.

…

This time the darkness was slightly easier to overcome. Elsa felt as if she had been drifting forever on the bottom of the frozen fjord, encountering lost broken ships and strange leviathans, the weight and colour of the water unbearable.

But to look up, way up, and see a glimmer of light, this was reason enough to try again, reason enough to cast off the shackles of deep wet cold and strive for the surface. Where there was light, there would be life. And where there was life, there would be Anna.

The journey was exhausting. Elsa swam for a thousand years, up through the steel-flavoured depths of darkness and finally broke through a vast skim of fire on the surface.

There to finally open her gummy eyes and see what could be seen.

Sera Avundir's face was worn and tight, though relief was now obvious. When Elsa moved, Sera immediately straightened up in her chair placed next to Elsa's bed and leaned forward to grasp her wrist.

Elsa could have sworn that Anna had been here, just moments ago. The unfamiliar room was plagued with darkness, and faint moonlight stole through the narrow window. Only a small concert of candles on a nearby bureau provided any light. "Where is Anna?" Elsa breathed, surprised at the effort necessary to speak.

"She would not leave you," Sera said, laying the back of her hand against Elsa's forehead. "She stayed until your fever broke a few hours ago. Just turn your head, my Queen. She is right there."

Elsa turned her head and noticed Anna sleeping on a wide bed set next to Elsa's sickbed. Even in sleep Anna faced her sister, and Elsa could see dark circles of exhaustion and malaise under her closed eyes. She was under a pile of furs and yet her body trembled.

"What's wrong with her, Sera?" Elsa asked, not able to tear her eyes away from her sleeping girl.

"She has an infection of the lungs, Your Majesty, and has been running a low-grade fever for the past three days."

Elsa turned to look at her physician in shock. "Three _days?!_"

"Almost four, now. Queen Elsa, I need you to drink this." The physician put a mug in her hands and pressed it towards her.

Elsa's mouth felt parched, and the herbal drink was welcome on her fuzzy tongue. Only as she gulped the dregs did she recognize part of the concoction. Syrup of poppies. She looked at her physician in alarm.

"I will not lose you now, Queen Elsa," Sera said, her voice firm as mountains. "I nearly lost you once already tonight. You must sleep to regain your health. Sleep, Your Majesty, we'll both be here when you wake."

The tonic was already working to deaden her nerves and weigh down her muscles. Elsa looked at her princess, anguish rising in her throat as sleep stole her eyes.

…

The quality of light was different the next time Elsa opened her eyes. It appeared to be just after sunrise on some unknown day.

And the face that filled her vision was the most beloved one of all.

Anna was wrapped in a winter robe yet she sat in a chair next to Elsa's bed. One of her hands held Elsa's hand, and it felt tentative and frail.

Elsa took a deep breath and Anna lifted her face. It was pale, haggard, streaked with tears and filled with exhaustion and worry.

Elsa saw Anna, and nothing else.

"Anna?" she whispered.

"Yes, love. I'm here."

Her voice was so frail, just like her hands. There was a flash of pain across her face and she turned her head to cough into her sleeves. Her breath was unsteady, with strange gulping sounds of distress that tore strips of love from Elsa's heart.

"Why are you sick?" Elsa asked. She felt she ought to know, that some knowledge had already been imparted to her, but she could not remember it just now.

"You don't remember?" Anna whispered, a ravine of vulnerability in her voice.

_Three days. Sera said something about three days._

Elsa held tight to Anna's hand and cast her mind into the recent past. She remembered the skating party, and the treats Anna kept bringing her during the afternoon. She recalled the delight of her people as she met them and smiled with them. Then snow-works, a display of magical prowess she had never before attempted. There was the completeness of her exhaustion as Anna guided her back to her room, and with all her heart Elsa hoped, hoped it would be protection enough.

So she was tucked both into her bed and into Anna's willing body, with many a caress to banish fears.

But neither of them had any talisman of protection against the dark vultures of night, and Elsa remembered what she had experienced, what she had seen and done. The awfulness of the dream crept close in her memory and Elsa forcibly locked it away. She could not bear it any better now than before.

Then.

_Oh, no!_

Elsa widened her eyes in shock as she looked at the dear girl before her. Seeing Anna's lips swept away the last veil of confusion, and she remembered how she had latched on to them in wild desperation and fear. Anna's mouth had been safe harbour; shelter against all storms, and Elsa had kissed her sweet lips with a voracious hunger that should have stayed concealed forever. Elsa had taken the comfort she needed, taken it without permission, without thought for consequence.

She really was a monster.

She could not bear to look at the woman she adored above all else. For this moment she had no courage, nor bravery.

So she closed her eyes, and covered her face with her hands, and wished for a great crater to open beneath her bed and swallow her whole.

The sound of her name, whispered in unfathomable distress, opened an immense chasm of love and hurt in her heart. She could not bear the sounds of sorrow coming from her sister.

Her cowardice shamed her.

Was she really going to do this to Anna again? Conceal her true feelings, as if by hiding them she didn't feel them at all? Could she go on pretending that she was frozen?

This was Anna. This girl who mourned next to her bed was not only her sister, she was the reason for Elsa's existence. She was the guiding star of Elsa's heart, a light to chase away all the shadows of the past. Her love was the great balancer between them; love to thaw every storm that battered Elsa's body and soul. She gave Elsa her life, and she deserved much better than this as her reward.

Elsa opened her eyes just in time to see Anna abruptly stand up and turn away, facing the stark stone walls of the sickroom and the window that revealed dawning light.

Then Anna took a step away from Elsa, her head tossed high in agony, her hands clenched in fists, her altered heart open, vulnerable.

And Elsa recognized this moment as the one that would change all futures, alter all destinies, and rearrange every thread in the fabric of their lives. Elsa knew it, and finally she was not afraid. Just like her epiphany on the mountaintop, she could let it go, leave the past in the past.

This moment was the same as the point of sacrifice where Anna stood between Prince Hans' blade and Elsa's prone body.

This was the moment where Elsa could make a similar choice, where she could stand between her grieving sister and the awful emptiness of a frozen future. This was the moment she could protect Anna's heart and soul against an enemy that could not even be seen, an enemy who even now flayed her dear sister with anxiety and doubt.

She had promised to tell the truth.

And when words couldn't emerge from her love-stricken throat, then action would have to suffice.

Elsa scrambled out of her bed, and though a brief spell of dizziness caused her step to fumble, she caught Anna from behind. From behind her choked lips came a throaty cry, "Anna, please don't go."

She heard an exhalation of surprise even as she pressed her body completely against her sister's back. She wrapped both arms soft and strong around the dear girl, one tight over her waist, the other between her breasts with her hand over Anna's heart. She ducked her head, nuzzling into Anna's shoulder and then held her as tightly as her weakened limbs would allow.

There was no denying the soft whimper of joy and agony that fell from Anna's lips as Elsa embraced her so completely from behind.

Elsa lifted her head, and planted a kiss on the delicious skin of Anna's neck even as she applied just a bit more pressure to that hand above Anna's heart, a light squeeze of Anna's breast.

And her dearest girl burst into another flurry of choked coughing. Elsa was frantic, and carefully turned Anna around so she could look at her.

There was something different in Anna's eyes. She looked frail and helpless, yes, but there was a measure of peace also there, a serenity that could not be shattered, not by the wildest of winter storms. "I knew you would come back to me," Anna whispered. "Elsa, I have to tell you…"

Anna doubled over once again as her chest heaved with coughs. The sputum on Elsa's sleeve was tinged with blood.

Behind her Elsa heard the door open.

A great cough that sounded like the tearing of Anna's lungs, and then all at once Anna seemed to lose control of her legs, and she started to buckle. Elsa's weakened body could not handle the strain, but soon an attendant was taking the Princess from her, and coaxing her back to her bed. Anna would not release Elsa's hand, and the Queen mutely followed, her own limbs barely responsive.

"She should not be out of bed," Sera growled. "Neither should you, Queen Elsa."

"Never mind that," Elsa said, sitting on the edge of Anna's bed as her princess was tucked back in between the sheets. White snowflakes were flying behind Elsa's retinas, and a cloud of faint nearly stole her consciousness. She ducked her head to breathe through the woozy spell, but she would not release Anna's hand. The doctor glowered at her, but handed the tonic to the attendant, who was trying to convince Anna to drink.

Anna finally finished the last of it, and settled back against her pillow. Sera Avundir opened her mouth and Elsa spoke right over her. "I'm not leaving, if that was your suggestion, Sera." She squeezed Anna's fiery palm in hers and looked down at her sister. Anna lay like a corpse in her bed, barely moving, barely breathing, her skin far too pale.

"Queen Elsa, I will forcibly remove you from this room if necessary," Sera threatened. "However, in the face of such defiance from both of you over the last four days, I will settle for a compromise. You may stay, but only if you drink my tonics as directed, and only if you both get the rest you need. Understand me, Your Majesty. Anna has pneumonia, and it is no small matter, not with her heart condition. The infecting agent can be contagious, which is why I would separate you if I could. I know better now, and will not suggest it any longer. But have a care for your own health, please, Queen Elsa, seeing as you are so newly brought back to life. If not for your own sake, then for Anna's."

She was as thin-lipped and stern as Elsa had ever seen her, and in sight of her ferocity Elsa nodded her agreement.

Both sisters were subjected to a brief examination at that point, after which Sera Avundir finally took her leave.

Anna hadn't moved much since taking to her bed, and was limp and malleable throughout Sera's exam. Elsa decided to lie down in Anna's bed. Her princess smiled for her then, before she turned her face away and coughed into the sheets.

At that point Anna did not face Elsa again, but Elsa knew why.

So with her hands outstretched, Elsa gathered her sister into her arms, her front to Anna's back, and felt Anna hold her hands tight over her chest. "Oh my dearest heart, what happened to you?" Elsa whispered into Anna's hair.

"Would you really have jumped, Elsa?" she heard Anna say, the words broken and cutting like glass.

Elsa's heart plunged into memory and came out dripping black.

"Oh sweetheart, it had been the worst dream yet. Anna, I killed you myself in that last dream, I held the knife in my hands and plunged it into your heart, and I liked it, Anna, I craved it. You were screaming, oh Anna, it was the most terrifying thing I've ever done… your blood on my lips and I wasn't even sated…"

"We kissed again, Elsa."

Elsa was so glad she could not see Anna's face, for the regret and anguish she heard in Anna's voice was enough to break her heart completely. Elsa ducked her head, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Anna." As Elsa said the words she could feel Anna's body shudder underneath her hands, and a faint pull and twist away.

The chasm that opened between them, though it was but an inch, resembled the great rearing waves of madness and destruction that had toppled their parents ship in a freakish and voracious sea. The emptiness of that space was the emptiness of a frozen future, of secrecy and duty and lies.

Elsa gulped back her horror at this inch of space between them, for this pain was just as bad as the pain that awful frozen day when Anna protected her from Hans. No, this pain was worse, because Anna was obviously in torment, and it was all Elsa's fault.

"Was it really that awful, Elsa?" Anna murmured as she writhed slightly in the sheets, curling herself into a ball. "Was kissing me enough to kill yourself over?"

Anna's strange behaviour since waking made sudden sense. The clarity of the wound was piercingly apparent.

Elsa grabbed her sister's shoulders and turned her around with as much gentleness as she could muster while in the fury of her own feeling. Anna's face was wretched with emotion, and her eyes… her eyes looked like there was no such thing as hope. Whatever peace had been there earlier had been shattered.

"My brave and beautiful girl, kissing you that night was unexpected. In that horrible dream I had just killed you, oh your screams were so terrible, and to suddenly wake and find us kissing… I can't, can't express…"

Such worry in Anna's eyes, and she whispered, "Try… please, Elsa, tell me."

"I thought you dead, Anna. To wake and find you alive, to find your lips on mine…it was the most beautiful experience of my life. I needed it, so much."

Pause.

"Then why did you _run?_" Anna's voice cracked on the final word, and she turned her head to cough.

Once again Elsa felt bolted to the here and now, forced into truth, and the courage required to speak the truth would empty every reserve of bravery in her heart and soul. She could not worry now about the consequences, if the truth would be welcome or not. Anna could leave her forever, and this chasm of an inch between them could become whole kingdoms, but at least Anna would have known of Elsa's integrity, that the word of a sister and a queen could extend even this far.

Even here and now, at the beginning of all things.

"I ran because I suddenly came to my senses, and realized that I was kissing you without your permission. I was kissing you in a way no sister ever has a right to. I was kissing you like a lover, Anna, and in a moment… in just a moment longer I would have gone even further."

Elsa could not bear Anna's gaze. She poured her words out to the bright red hair on Anna's pillow.

And Anna echoed Olaf, and in a voice so very small she said, "Go on."

Tears filled Elsa's eyes, and she would not wipe them away. She needed them there, to anchor her eyes to the truth. "So I ran, because I could not bear to hurt you any longer. I ran without knowing where I was going, only wanting to get as high as I could, so I could scream my agony to the heavens, the agony of a murderer who takes what she wants without consent whether it be your life or your lips! Oh I ran, Anna, and maybe part of me really wishes I could have thrown myself off the wall, because then at least you would be safe from me forever."

Silence echoed in the sickroom.

Finally dashing the tears away with her fist, Elsa looked at Anna.

The princess' head had lolled to the side, her eyes closed. Her breath was shallow, cluttered. Frantic, Elsa held her sister's wrist and felt her heartbeat, which was clipping along incredibly fast.

"Anna?" she whispered.

"Anna?" she said aloud.

"SERA!" she shrieked.

* * *

><p><em>The title song is A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. Please listen, it's so gorgeous. Many thanks as always to tremendous followers and reviewers. See you again in about five days!<em>


	10. Chapter 10 - I Want You Here

_First, I am not a medical doctor. Forgive me my mistakes._

_Second, for any readers who want a real tear-jerker of an update, listen to the chapter song either before or during your reading. It's "I Want You Here" by Plunb._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Ten – I Want You Here<strong>

"Queen Elsa, if you want to help, then you sit down there and rub Anna's feet. We need to draw the fever from her head."

"What the hell are _those_?"

"Language, miss! I did not ask for leeches, sir. God, haven't any of you studied in Germany? Get those away."

"Will she be all right?"

"Queen Elsa, please, let me work."

…

"I knew this would happen. Of all the stubborn, mule-headed royals I've ever encountered, she's the worst. At least one of you is feeling better."

"What else can I do?"

"You can rest."

"But…"

"I mean it, Your Majesty. Sit. Rest. Before I give you syrup of poppies. We wouldn't be in this mess if Princess Anna had done as I asked."

…

"What do you mean, he's gone? Kai, where did he go?"

"Queen Elsa, Anna sent him away with Olaf. You were dying, and the flurry you had given the snowman disappeared. He began to melt, so Anna made Kristoff take him up to the mountains, to be safe."

"His flurry vanished?"

"You were _dying_, my Queen. The Bishop came to give you the rites. Ser Ostven and I located your will."

"Oh, god."

"Princess Anna was quite distraught. In the end, we left you in her care, and in the care of the gods. It was the happiest news of my life when she announced that you had awoken, that your fever finally broke."

"Kai, I…"

"You must be strong for Anna now, just as she was for you. And please, follow Sera's orders."

…

"This must be done, Your Majesty. If you can't bear it, you must leave."

"No, I must stay."

"Keep out of my way. Sit up there, you may hold her hand. I've given her laudanum, she shouldn't be waking."

_Hisss__**crackkk…**_

"Oh, dear Anna."

"Quiet! Good, the placement is good. Pack it with the sterile bandages."

"How long does that tube have to stay there?"

"There has been a build up of fluid in the pleural space near the lungs, and this catheter in her chest will help to drain it. We'll know soon how effective it is. Then I can answer your question, not before."

…

"I don't know why we even bother having two beds in here."

"Sera, I don't give a damn how inappropriate it may seem, but I'm staying right here."

"Were you two brought up as sailors? Egads, you're as bad as the guards!"

"My apologies, Physician. At least those words help get my point across."

"Admirably so. Queen Elsa, sleep wherever you like. Likewise, I don't give a damn where you rest, just as long as you rest. Sheesh."

"Thank you, Sera."

"Queen Elsa, this is not my place, but may I be permitted to speak freely?"

"Yes, Sera Avundir."

"You and Anna have formed an attachment somewhat beyond sisterhood, haven't you?"

"… I have for her, if that's what you mean."

"Forgive me."

"What did you mean, Sera? Why did you say it that way?"

"Please, I shouldn't have…"

"I'm begging you, Sera. Tell me."

"Forgive me. I cannot speak."

…

Elsa was intimately familiar with loneliness. She knew the form of it, the jagged edges that would appear with the waxing and waning of an endless night, the smoothing of it when dawn came again. She understood the colour of it, how it veiled her world with thin clouds of grey, until every object lost its brilliance and hue. Elsa knew the weight of it, for loneliness was bound to her very wrists and ankles in shackles far stronger than steel.

As the years passed Elsa even grew familiar with the frozen nature of loneliness, that it created one of the few constants in her life. Elsa's existence became defined by two absolutes: the gloves and the loneliness. The kingdom changed around her, the palace aged, the glimpses of her sister revealed a growing vibrant young woman, even her own parents suddenly passed away. Yet Elsa would remain unchanged and unchanging at least in soul and spirit, for loneliness was her constant, and it did not age, nor falter, nor wane.

And she both loved it and cursed it.

By the year prior to her coronation, Elsa knew that loneliness was now her armour; it would prop her up when all else would fail. It would hold up her watery bones and give meaning to her skin. She could define herself by it, for surely she would be the Queen of Isolation, and mistress to a kingdom that would fear her for her separateness. Her people would never draw near to her; they would never touch her, for she was nothing more than a remote star upon a horizon dead and black. This her definition of life and living would have to be enough, for there could be nothing better. Not if she wished to protect Anna.

Protecting Anna was all she was good for. Even if the consequences were so dire as this isolation, this bleak ravaging of hope. This was her only gift she could give to her sister, and Anna would never even know it.

Elsa built the foundation of her life's mission on protecting her sister. She should have known that Anna was the only person who could topple it all.

So when one of those pillars was taken away, when Anna snatched away her glove, Elsa should have rejoiced. Anna took her glove, and Elsa's kingdom of isolation crumbled and fell; a great rending and destruction of every wretched foundation of her non-life.

To have no armour, to be exposed and vulnerable. To dream of happiness and courage and find out exactly what she was capable of. To express her love for her sister in the creation of a living snowman named Olaf. These were moments of metamorphosis and transcendence, should she show the required courage. Should she be able to make the same sacrifice as Anna had in her behalf.

Elsa had understood loneliness, but that was before she dared to change, before she dared to love. Anna broke the remaining shackles of Elsa's loneliness the same moment she broke Prince Hans' sword.

Then Elsa dared to walk the passages of the castle without her gloves, hand in Anna's hand. Blessed communion. Wondrous connection. Vital, unending.

Or so she had believed.

And here she was, and it was yet another 4 am, with blackness pressed over her kingdom like laudanum and ether. Yet another 4 am, but this hour could not be the same as all those in the past, for the Elsa who suffered from crippling loneliness had surely died in the fires of her fever. It was yet another 4 am; Queen Elsa held Anna in her arms and sipped ever so tentatively from a secret chalice of love and connection.

And pondered all those barren years, gloved and isolated.

How was it possible that love could thaw even this? Even her perpetual bedmates of isolation and loneliness had been transformed with Anna's sacrifice.

The clouds of grey vanquished, and all her world populated suddenly with colour and brilliance and light.

The weight from wrists and ankles released, her soul light as a feather for the first time in so many years.

And the newly gained wisdom of the Queen of Arendelle extended even this far, for she understood that Anna's sacrifice was but one part of the miracle that had been performed. The remainder came from the seed of courage in Elsa's own heart, to open her body and soul to the challenge of a better life, to accept the gift of Anna's sacrifice in all the celestial glory in which it had been given.

So even moments like this one at 4 am with a gravely ill sister in her arms and darkness that assaulted every space save for this sanctuary, Elsa could lift her lips in a smile. It was her choice to find the beauty strewn in every part of her life, her choice to celebrate the sacrifices her sister made, and her choice not to endlessly mourn what might have been.

It was her choice to gaze upon Anna's weakened and struggling form, and to rejoice in every minute that she still stayed alive. To count as precious every moment that found Anna in her arms, and that kept her sister's heart beating and breath constant. To cherish every connection of body and skin under these sheets that she found so very fulfilling.

It was her choice to find splendour and rebirth in the fires of her own fever. She had glimpsed the silvery shores of the eternal kingdom of heaven as her body hovered near death, and when she returned to her body the echo of that blessed place remained. For all her loneliness of the past she had never found peace, not with its jagged edges, its washed out colour, and the weight of its shackles.

She had returned with the taste of heaven on her lips, like manna on her tongue. And from the moment that Anna collapsed next to her in the throes of her own grave illness, Elsa knew why she had returned.

It was not to save Anna's life.

It was to save her own.

She would not squander her second chance. Even this fickle moment of darkness and quiet passed so very swiftly, and every year and decade of her life would pass in the same velocity, but would it be time well spent?

All it took was a choice. And she forgave herself all instances of fear, the moments when she lost hope and wished for her gloves. It was enough to try, again and again, to do the right thing.

So Elsa contemplated this new chance, and this new choice, even while she sat propped up in Anna's sickbed, her princess sleeping in unquiet unease between her legs, her head on Elsa's breast, all to keep her from pitching side to side and dislodging that hellish catheter in her chest. She felt every tremor of Anna's body, the cool dampness of her sweat, the shallow breaths that barely lifted her chest. They rested together as if part of one body and one heart, sharing instances of joy and instances of pain.

And should the unthinkable occur, should Anna slip ever deeper into the final oblivion that stalked her tortured breath, should Anna's heart be silenced forever by death, Elsa knew that her own life would go on.

The ache would be unimaginable. Elsa would want to scream her anguish to the heavens, to cry aloud with the unfairness of it all. She would vent her torture in words torn from her mouth, _I want you here, you were here and now you are gone_. She would feel the misery, she would tiptoe right up to the edge of the nightmare of a fathomless void, endlessly keening, _I want you here, god help me, oh god help me, how could you do this to me?!_ Breath would fail her, and she would crumble under the weight of an empty future for a time, but in the end she would go on.

Elsa finally understood what Anna told her after she woke up from her very first nightmare, that night after the shocking events on the frozen fjord.

_You do not owe me vengeance, Elsa. If anything, you owe me happiness._

It would be the greatest gift ever given to one most beloved. She would not rely upon Anna to provide her with happiness and joy. She would not make Anna responsible for a happy ending to a fairy-tale existence. No, her life and love and joy would be gifts springing up from the depths of her own soul, and they would transcend all pain, all suffering, and all death.

Even Anna's.

And this truth with its piercing clarity illuminated the curse of her nightmares that had so plagued her.

Her nightmares had been reflections of selfishness, of misunderstanding. Each and every one showed the hideousness of a life built solely on her sister. That with Anna's death Queen Elsa would no longer exist, that all the goodness of Elsa's magic and power was dependent on her sister's unconditional love. That with her sister dead and gone Elsa would descend into fiery infernos of dominion and anger and hell.

It was unfair in the extreme to prop herself up on her sister, to yoke her hopes and dreams to a person who had no way to fulfill them, not while she was busy trying to fulfill her own.

If Elsa wished to change those damning and unlovely visions of the future, she would have to change herself.

Now that reality had presented itself with the same awfulness as those nightmares, now that Anna languished in illness and pain, Elsa knew she owed Anna happiness, even if Anna wasn't there to enjoy every aspect of this new-found joy with her.

And should Anna live,_ oh god please let Anna live_, Elsa would no longer sit back and wait for the rest of her life to occur in the same frozen track of the past dozen years. She would create her happy ending with the same determination she used to create her palace of ice.

And it would be so beautiful.

Elsa looked down at the beloved face, at the fingers that were entwined with hers. She knew what her heart wanted most, and she was done with playing the martyr. She wanted Anna here. If her own brush with death had not taught her the vagaries of mortality, then Anna's illness certainly would. Life was too short to spend in self-imposed prisons of isolation and duty. Life was too short not to reach out and grasp the things that bring the most pleasure and joy. Life was too short to wait for love to come and find her and rescue her from her future, like she was some princess hidden away in a far tower awaiting the kiss of a lover for redemption and resurrection.

True love was a partnership, and Elsa would come down from that tower, and meet Anna halfway.

Well, maybe a teensy bit over halfway. There was nothing wrong with a little courtship, with revealing the depths of care and devotion. There was nothing wrong with a little seduction, especially if it could involve moonlit walks and sharing chocolate and kissing.

Elsa blushed as she thought of trying to woo her sister. Setting aside the obvious obstacles of social taboo, she was certain her attempts at showing her love would come off wrong, that it would be awkward and embarrassing at times. But if she couldn't even show a hint of her own vulnerability, how could they ever forge a true relationship of love and trust?

The gloves had to stay off. The doors had to stay open.

All of these thoughts being academic at this point, these musings slightly muddled for the deep hour of night she was caught upon, for Anna was still deathly ill, and every time she hacked and coughed it was like she was tearing Elsa's own heart. Anna had to live, because Elsa had to love her. Elsa had to take her on moonlit walks, and feed her chocolate, and most definitely kiss her, and she had to feel Anna kiss her back. Even if Elsa had to compete with Kristoff for Anna's affection, she would do it, yes she would.

And all the hope in Elsa's heart was strengthened by the many memories of Anna's commitment and devotion. There were so many soft and velvet instances of affection, so many not-quite-sisterly interactions that could be interpreted as more than familial love. Elsa had only to think of sleeping with Anna, and waking with Anna, and Anna brushing her hair, and Anna holding her hand, and Anna kissing her lips…

_I want you here!_

And Anna stirred, her fingers clenching Elsa's. Her head rolled from one side to the other, slowly, deliberately. She licked her lips and her eyelids opened just a fraction.

Then she opened her mouth to breathe, and Elsa's soul was breaking in gladness, like her heart was the sunrise over vast and distant dark mountains. With her free hand she touched Anna's cheek, grounding her to the here and now, and Anna's eyes opened wider just a moment before closing again.

"Elsa?" she softly cried.

"Yes, love. I'm here," Elsa whispered, deliberately echoing the words Anna had spoken to her when she woke from her fever.

Anna burst into a storm of coughs, her free hand covering her mouth, and when she was done she looked down at the tube sticking out of her chest. Her eyes widened in shock and she made to move, but Elsa squeezed her with her legs and hands and shushed her with calm words. "Anna, dearest, don't move, please don't move, I'm here, you're okay, everything is going to be all right, listen to me sweetheart, my own, my pet, my heart…"

Elsa knew that a guard had been stationed right outside the sickroom door, Kai having increased security within the castle after the incident on the bell tower. They would have alerted the physician on duty that Anna had wakened.

Only moments passed before the door opened and Sera Avundir herself entered, looking so very tired and anxious, 4 am written on her pale face, a tonic in her hands.

"Don't leave," Anna whispered, "Oh, Elsa don't leave me…"

Elsa wanted to say something, but she simply could not speak; she could barely breathe over the anguish she felt, the soul-wrenching quality of Anna's words and fears. Had her girl been dreaming, why would she ever think that Elsa would leave? Elsa looked at Sera with undisguised torment in her eyes.

"Queen Elsa, help her sit up a bit," Sera commanded, and her brusqueness was just what Elsa needed. Elsa gently leaned forward so Anna's torso lifted to the right height for drinking the medicine that had been prepared. Her arms went so soft and fierce around Anna's middle, helping to hold her up, carefully avoiding the tube protruding from her breast. Sera pressed the cup to Anna's lips and her girl gratefully drank, sputtering and coughing and sighing between sips.

By the time she finished the tonic, all her meagre reserve of energy appeared to have been taken. Elsa could actually feel the exhaustion and lethargy return to her sister's limp body, though it could also be attributed to the syrup of poppies in the tonic to help Anna sleep through the fits of coughing.

And the physician lifted her wan face and looked at Queen Elsa. There was no mistaking the look of complete and utter faith in her eyes, for it appeared that Sera Avundir could see past every moat and fortification Elsa had once built around herself, those damned gloves and that damned isolation, all of it replaced now by love unexpected and glorious, love unrequited and perhaps unwelcome, but love undeniable in its greatness and depth.

Though Elsa had not spoken the words, her intent was obvious to the attentive eyes of the physician. That she was in love.

With Anna.

And it was all right.

"Do you remember what I told you that first night, Queen Elsa?" Sera softly asked, and oh there was such a universe of acceptance in the tone of her voice, and it contributed to that softest and most vulnerable of Elsa's hopes.

Of course Elsa remembered.

"It may be that your presence is all the cure that is required," Elsa whispered.

Sera nodded, and then rose to perform a quiet but thorough check of Anna's vitals. Elsa leaned back, and Anna squeezed her hand one last time before succumbing once again to the stillness of sick-sleep.

Sera Avundir left her alone with her sister, and it was past 4 in the morning, and Queen Elsa continued her vigil.

She was steadfast now, she was strong. She knew her desire and was no longer afraid.

…

"Hey, sweetheart. I know it's hard to stay awake. Those awful tonics of Sera's certainly don't help. At least your pneumonia is finally getting better and soon Sera will take that awful catheter out of your chest.

"No more worries, Anna. I'm not leaving you. Not now, not ever. You'll wake eventually, and I'll be here when you do.

"I might be a bit different when you wake up, dearest. I won't go back to the person I used to be before the freeze. I know what I want now, Anna. The call of my heart is loud and clear. I want you here. So much. I want you beside me forever.

"I never meant to hurt you, Anna. I would sooner cut out my own heart. I know I can't promise a life full of sunshine and ducklings, but I can promise to make it as good a life as possible, with faith and trust and lots of love.

"Whatever you want of your life, pet, I'll see it done. Whatever you choose, I will always love you. You are the reason I wake up in the morning, and while I hope and pray I will be a great part of your life in the future, I will accept your choice.

"My last promise to you is this, Anna. When you are awake and ready to hear it, I will bare my heart to you. I will leave you in no doubt of my regard. I owe you that much. I love you that much. No more closed doors, dearest. Not when I want you so badly.

"Sleep now. I'll be here when you wake. I love you."

* * *

><p><em>I'll try to get the next update up by Christmas Eve.<em>

_Wow, look, it is almost Christmas! Give that little review box below a little love, and send me some cheer. Many thanks to all the reviews, faves and follows. You guys are awesome._


	11. Chapter 11 - All of Me

**Chapter Eleven – All of Me**

Queen Elsa of Arendelle sat propped with pillows in the sick room, a slim volume of poetry in her hands and a generous candelabra of light on the nearby table. Her tousle-headed and red-haired sister was sleeping next to her, her head and shoulders within the Queen's reach.

The awful catheter was finally out of Anna's chest, and the hole in her ribcage and skin was covered with blood-tinged bandages. And earlier that afternoon Anna had woken up for a while, though she spoke but few words, and was soon asleep again. The violent coughing had faded with the passage of days and the applications of poultices and the taking of tonics. The point of crisis had never been quite so dire with the Princess as it had been for the Queen, but it had been harrowing enough for the young royal.

Queen Elsa could hear the celebrating out in the corridors, when Sera Avundir finally let Kai and the servants know that Anna was out of danger. Kai spoke of the tributes of chocolates, cakes and cookies that had been left for the Princess by all those concerned for her in the village. Elsa had been gratified by the love everyone had for her sister.

"Though you may not have realized this, Your Majesty," he had concluded, turning his hat in his hands, "that the tributes and well-wishes for you overwhelmed us. Gifts of flowers, of spirits, of food. Groups of people who sat in the church and prayed endlessly for your safety, and for Anna's safety as well."

Elsa felt tears of gratitude spark in her eyes. She didn't deserve such good people, but she would serve them. Oh yes, she would serve them her whole life, just as she vowed.

"Kai, could you assist me with one other thing?"

Elsa whispered her idea into her Steward's ear, and she could tell by the grin that overtook his face that he deeply approved. "Leave it to me, Your Majesty," he said, bowing to both of the girls before leaving the room.

Leaving Elsa alone with her sister and a book of poetry that was nothing more than a prop.

She could see Anna starting to stir again. Her sister's eyes had been far too vague the last few times they opened, and Elsa could barely wait for the sparkle and verve she so adored in Anna to reappear. She had a promise to keep, and words to say when the moment was right to say them.

_All of me loves all of you..._

She set the book down and put her hand on Anna's shoulder.

"Mmm," Anna murmured.

Elsa gathered the tangled mass of Anna's hair and stroked her scalp. If Anna had been any closer genetically to a cat, she would have purred. Elsa kept stroking, rubbing, playing with Anna's hair, a simple smile of delight on her face.

Last week she had comforted Anna by saying that they had come through the storm together. The icy blasts of the coronation and the events it spurred were nothing compared to the heart-storms that had raged for the past eight days of fever and illness. To come so close to losing it all again, it still wrenched at Elsa's heart.

Her path was clear now, a golden road that led into a future unmapped and unknown. It would be a path of true love, and she would walk it with the woman who held every piece of her heart, as long as that woman agreed to walk it with her.

Consequences be damned.

Elsa smiled at the thought of such sailor-talk, and Anna opened her eyes. "I can feel you smiling up there," she said, her voice low and rumbly. Her hand went over to clasp Elsa's blanket covered knee. "Care to share?"

"I kind of swore at Sera Avundir a few times. She called me a sailor."

"You, too? I used the f-word."

"Anna!"

"I was rather upset at the time."

Elsa chuckled and continued playing with Anna's hair. "How are you feeling, pet?"

"Better, finally. That damn hole in my chest still hurts."

Elsa laughed out loud. "Sailor. Maybe I should kiss it and make it better."

Anna's hand suddenly stilled on Elsa's knee, and she looked over at Elsa. "Are you joking with me?"

"Not necessarily," Elsa replied, moving her hands so she could prop herself up and shuffle further down the bed. She was aware of Anna's eyes on her the entire time. When she was on a level with Anna, she carefully pulled down the top sheet and light blanket covering the Princess. Anna was wearing a rather plain smock, with ties down the side that made it easier for the physicians to investigate her lungs and heart.

With Anna's eyes scorching her, Elsa bent her head and gently kissed the fabric above the wound in her chest. She felt Anna's hand on her hip as she did so.

"There now. How does that feel?" Elsa asked, lifting her face enough to look at her Princess.

"Like I couldn't bear it if you were joking," Anna said, her voice hitching on her words as she struggled into a seated position. All fun had disappeared, and Anna appeared just as she was; a young woman who had suffered far more than she ever should have.

Elsa held up her hands, but did not stop her sister from doing as she wished in order to sit up. She merely adjusted her own position, so she was sitting right beside and facing the Princess, her legs curled to the side to support her.

"No, sweetheart, I think the time for joking has passed," Elsa agreed. "And I would gladly bare my heart for you if we could but pass five minutes uninterrupted."

Anna opened her mouth to protest just as the door to the sickroom opened, admitting the Physician-in-Training.

"See?" Elsa said, wishing her words were not prophetic. She had known they would come in once they heard Anna was awake.

Anna had a strange expression on her face, and Elsa just knew she would have bodily ejected everyone from this room had she the strength to do so. She had the gumption to do it, as Prince Hans had found to his dismay. It was a mighty fine right jab Princess Anna had.

Hans had been lucky Anna hadn't been armed with a sword.

"Glad to see you up, Princess Anna," Ser Bjerman said. "I'd like to check your vitals, please."

Elsa turned her head away to provide privacy, but even then she was aware of the fire of Anna's stare directly between her shoulder blades. The rustling of cloth testified of her smock being opened, the stethoscope placed against her healing chest. Anna breathed on command, and coughed a couple more times before the rest of the exam was over.

Finally he departed, but no sooner had the door closed than it opened again, admitting Gerda. "Your Highness, Queen Elsa had asked that a warm bath be prepared for you upon your awakening. If you please, I shall attend to you. You must be wanting a good wash, we've been able to do nothing with your hair."

Elsa looked tenderly at her sister. She remembered how wondrous her first post-illness bath had been. She had only wished that it could have been Anna washing her hair, murmuring the soothing words that Gerda had provided.

Anna took Elsa's hand. "I should have known you would take care of me."

"I will do anything for you, Anna," Elsa quietly vowed.

"Her Majesty has also arranged for hot chocolate and a small plate of truffle chocolates for your Highness to enjoy while bathing," Gerda added, peeling the blankets away from the far-too-thin girl.

This time Elsa could have slid into the warm lagoons of Anna's eyes. She had never known Anna to be this quiet; to rein in her mouth and tongue, and it worried her. She would give anything to erase the gravity that had so beset her princess in the passing of the last eight days of worry and illness. Anna had a _presence_ now that had never been there before, as if the depths of her heart had been tried and tested in the fire of agony and doubt, but never before had her soul simply _shone _as it did now, clarified, purified, and revealed in triumph for all the world to see.

Elsa lifted Anna's warm hand to her face and tenderly kissed her knuckles. "Enjoy your bath, dearest."

Anna's eyes stayed fixated on hers as long as possible as Gerda clucked and helped her along, out into the corridor and into the nearby bathing chamber. Elsa saw nothing else until the hem of Anna's robe cleared the doorway.

Then Elsa looked down at the rumpled sheets, then out the window into the darkness of a summer night. "It was too close, Anna. Far too close," she whispered.

She had little time for melancholy thought, for Sera Avundir abruptly appeared in the doorway, bearing yet another horrid mug of her horrid tonic, and Elsa's tongue curdled just to look at it. "I'm better, Sera, really," she started to protest, but the physician would brook no refusal, and pushed the mug into Elsa's hands. Elsa had learned the best way to take this dread concoction, and she swallowed the bitter contents as quickly as she could.

"I have a request to make of your Majesty," Sera abruptly said, taking the empty mug back in her hands.

Elsa considered a sarcastic reply, but every royal bone in her body repressed it, so she said, "Please, elucidate."

"Seeing as most of the kingdom has begun their annual summer retreat into the cottages and homesteads of the mountains, I have been anxious to do the same. However, you and your sister have proven the futility of this desire, what with your stubborn illnesses and even more stubborn behaviours."

Elsa compressed her lips into a thin line and narrowed her eyes at the Royal Physician.

The woman was neither blind nor daft, so she continued, "I feel it is time to come to another compromise, Queen Elsa."

"I'm all ears."

"I own a small chalet near Lost Island Lake. Both you and Princess Anna need considerable time for true healing and convalescence, especially time away from the stresses of managing the kingdom. Therefore I would like us all to retreat to the chalet for the next month. We'll bring a couple guards for your safety, a servant or two and perhaps a cook from the kitchens to help care for all of us. There are plenty of quarters available."

"Am I to abandon the affairs of the kingdom, Sera?"

"Frankly, yes, Your Majesty. The Regency Council is more than capable of handling small emergencies that may arise. As for the rest of the kingdom, you know as well as I that the summer is extremely quiet in every regard."

"So you would like us to join you, for an entire month. Just Anna and I. To convalesce." Elsa couldn't help but think of the cryptic conversation she had with the physician regarding their other-than-sisterly relationship. She was simultaneously afraid and hopeful of what might happen between she and Anna in such quiet and uninterrupted surroundings.

"Yes, Queen Elsa. That's exactly what I want."

"When would you like us to leave?"

"The day after tomorrow. Anna should be able to handle a trip by carriage by then. So it's settled?"

"I believe I may owe you a position on the Regency Council, Sera Avundir," Elsa mused. "You seem able to bend me to your wishes easily enough. Perhaps I should set you upon my Minister of Trade."

"He wouldn't last two rounds with me. Are we agreed?"

"Yes, Sera," Elsa said, unable to keep from laughing. "Please send Kai to me so we can make the arrangements."

"No need, Queen Elsa. You see, this was Kai's idea all along. Provided, of course, that he and Gerda are two of the servants invited to tag along."

"That little rogue," Elsa said, grinning in approval. He had intimated nothing of the sort in their conversation of just a few hours ago.

"We but live to serve," Sera said, bowing to the queen.

"Now I know you're being sarcastic. Sera, am I about to see a new side of you?"

"Let's just say that the mountains bring out… the romantic in all of us." Sera left the room in spite of Elsa's dropped jaw.

"I sense a conspiracy here," Elsa said to herself when the door had closed behind the physician. Then she didn't speak aloud again, but the thoughts were just as tumultuous in the vault of her mind.

_So, Sera suspects a relationship greater than sisterhood. And Kai suggests a mountain retreat for a whole month. If I didn't know any better, I would think that they approved of this… whatever this is, between Anna and I. But how could that be?_

Elsa was not left alone long to ponder the circumstances, for Gerda poked her head in the door, thankfully after giving a short knock. Elsa looked up in time to see Gerda ask, "Queen Elsa, Anna has almost finished her bubble bath, but was wondering if you would mind assisting with her hair. I have offered to do it myself, but she was strangely adamant. Something about a task that would finally be uninterrupted? She has threatened public flogging if she could not command some privacy." Gerda smiled at the last, as if Anna was just being Anna-ish, but Elsa knew better.

Elsa felt her cheeks flare in delight, and she rose from the bed. Gerda pointed her in the right direction, and Elsa advanced down the hallway, not unlike someone going to the firing squad. Her emotions had been running at such high levels lately, she wasn't sure if she could keep the cool poise that would be so necessary at a time such as this. Seeing Anna in the tub. Her beautiful and _naked_ sister.

Right then and there Elsa almost turned around, but she could not close the door on Anna's desire. Hadn't she said but a while ago that Anna could command her in all things? Now was not the time to renege on such a promise.

It was a good thing Anna wasn't on the Regency Council. Elsa would give her the entire kingdom and everything in it for the smile on her face.

So Elsa strode down the hallway, as regal as she could manage, and her self-confidence lasted as long as it took to enter the bathing chamber.

Anna was indeed completely coated in bubbles, just showing pale thin arms and wet red hair down upon her shoulders. She had been looking away as Elsa hesitantly knocked and entered the room, and even the simple act of watching her swivel her lovely neck and look in Elsa's direction was enough to cause her knees to tremble.

_Oh, yes. I've got it so bad. She's gorgeous._

_Get it together, Elsa. It's just Anna. Your sister._

_Who you happen to be desperately in love with._

"You don't mind, do you Elsa?" Anna asked, a universe of fragile concern in her voice. There was an empty mug and a solitary chocolate on a small table near the tub. "I saved the last chocolate for you.

Elsa had to clear her throat before saying, "No, pet, not at all. And thanks for the chocolate." She entered the room and closed the door behind her. There was a stool behind the tub where the servant would sit before helping to wash hair, should such assistance be required.

From this vantage point she could make out vague outlines of Anna's body, the knees that nearly crested through the bubbles, and the wet expanse of bandage above Anna's breast that covered the healing hole of the catheter. She popped the chocolate into her mouth, forced her eyes upon Anna's hair and reached down for the herbal soap concocted specially for the palace by the village apothecary. She lathered up the soap and started by gently massaging Anna's scalp.

Anna made a noise that was most definitely between a rumble and a growl and a mew of pleasure, and it stuck directly in Elsa's heart like the claws of a kitten. She found herself humming Anna's favourite lullaby as she worked the soap into the expanse of Anna's hair. Anna did not move, nor did she speak, but the warmth of the chamber, the humidity of the air, and the spell of quiet had caused some profound shift in the very fabric of time.

The blessed moments seemed practically endless. Elsa hummed and massaged and felt her heart expanding to encompass every part of her chest, crowding out her lungs, her throat. All she had to do was look down and see the pink-tinged bandage above Anna's chest and her vast heart wrenched in pity and concern. They hadn't been able to finish their conversation about what had happened on the bell tower that night, why Elsa had been unable to come to her senses despite all Anna's pleading, and why she had forced Anna into such horrible outdoor exposure as to cause the pneumonia that had so plagued her.

"I can feel you worrying up there," Anna abruptly said, her voice quiet.

"You have become far too perceptive for your own good," Elsa wryly answered, dipping her hands in the water to slick off the soap. "You can dunk now to rinse."

Elsa barely turned her head fast enough so as not to see Anna's graceful and trim body dunk entirely underwater, her hands in her hair to rinse the soap away. The queen felt her heart rate increase, and she took great interest in the colour and texture of the towel hanging nearby, at least until Anna had surfaced again, her skin glistening with water and expired soap.

"So what is it going to take for you to talk to me?" Anna asked, not looking at her.

"I'm going away tomorrow," Elsa abruptly blurted out as she reached for the cream rinse to apply to Anna's hair.

Anna folded her arms over her chest and turned sideways in the bath. Her eyes were like daggers when they finally reached Elsa's gaze. "You're going away?" she asked, her voice dangerously quiet, the edges like dry ice.

"I'm going up into the mountains to restore Olaf. I'll be back before nightfall."

"Do you know where you are going?" Her voice was still awfully slim and dangerous.

"Kai heard from one of the trolls today. We know exactly where they are. Though we should have guessed they would have gone to the North Mountain. Olaf… was in pretty bad shape. He's being held together by troll magic now."

"And there is no way that they can come down to you. The only way for Olaf to be saved is for you to go to them." They were not questions, these sentences Anna spoke, and Elsa quailed to hear the sadness and worry in them.

"Yes."

Anna abruptly turned around in her bath, showing her back to Elsa.

The motion would have cut out Elsa's heart, had she been the same Elsa as a week ago.

That Elsa surely died in the fires of the fever that so nearly took her life.

This Elsa was_ transcendent._

This Elsa moved away from the stool, and it clattered to the floor behind her, and she kneeled beside Anna in her bathtub.

And Anna's face was desolate with emotions, and Elsa could read every one of them, from the concern for Olaf's safety that harrowed her soul, to the concern for Elsa having to leave so soon after her own recovery, to the emptiness of an entire day watching, waiting, wondering if disaster would strike again, surely they could not escape from all the evils of the world, especially the evils that oft-times beset royalty in tumultuous times, from kidnapping to murder and even worse. Elsa saw it all in Anna's face, and saw the love that blazed beneath. She could not know what sort of love it was, or if she dared make something of Sera's cryptic responses, but her own heart could tell no more lies.

Elsa kneeled tall on her knees and reached into the tub, gathering her sodden sister in her arms, tucking her face by her neck, and stroking her hair. Anna seemed aghast for just a moment at Elsa getting all wet, but then she succumbed to the embrace, and clutched at Elsa with desperate hands and arms.

"No more worries, Anna," Elsa whispered, her hands sliding on Anna's wet skin. "I will take guards with me, and I shall go as swiftly and carefully as I can."

"You'll come back to me."

"Yes of course sweetheart, I'll come back to you. I'll always come back to you."

"Promise me."

"Anna, I promise. We have a whole month at the chalet to enjoy right after."

Her sister abruptly pulled back in her arms. Elsa was very occupied for a moment making sure she did not look down at Anna's breasts. "Say again?" she asked.

Elsa smiled and busied herself by tucking wet hair behind Anna's ear, a most necessary diversion. "Sera Avundir has decided she is tired of taking care of us in the palace and missing out on her summer vacation. So we are to go to her chalet together, for a whole month of convalescence. No crowns, no kingdom, no worries."

"Are you serious?"

Elsa's smile turned into a full-fledged grin. "Yes, I'm serious. We're leaving in two or three days. Provided you are well enough to travel."

"A whole month. No court. No kingdom."

"Probably no visitors, either. We shall both be tremendously bored."

"Please tell me we still get chocolate," Anna said.

Elsa saw past the forced levity, and her heart clenched again in the deepest of love for Anna. She could not deserve this beautiful woman who sacrificed herself over and over again for Elsa's sake. No, she would be forever unworthy, but she would also endeavour every day of her life to be worthy of her and every one of those sacrifices.

If Elsa had her wish, Anna would know nothing but joy for every year to come. Elsa would wallow in joy, and the pleasure of it would seep into everyone she touched, a gift so individual and so pure that surely Anna would be affected by its wondrous wake.

"Chocolate, vodka, doors, I am sure we could arrange anything we wanted." Elsa abruptly leaned forward and kissed Anna's forehead. "Now, pet, shall we finish with your hair?"

Anna seemed slightly dumbstruck at the kiss, and she nodded before shifting in the tub again, exposing the silky expanse of her back to Elsa. Elsa swallowed over the sudden dryness of her mouth and set the stool aright. She lathered her hands with the cream rinse and began to work it into Anna's hair.

"Was there something you wanted to talk about?" Elsa asked. "You seemed rather perturbed at the interruptions earlier."

"Yes, there is, but it can keep for a while yet."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." She released the word rather softly into the air, which was the only reason Elsa felt able to let the matter go. For the moment.

So Elsa focused all her attention on working the cream through Anna's hair, and massaging her scalp with her fingers and palms, and noticed with a smile on her face that Anna was sinking a little lower into the tub, her knees coming a bit higher. It was a delaying tactic, of course, for the final step of washing, which was rapidly approaching.

Elsa could put it off no longer and somewhat regretfully said, "I think that about does it, Anna. Would you like to do the final bucket yourself, or shall I assist you?"

"I… don't feel very strong. Do you mind, or shall we call Gerda?"

"No, I don't mind," Elsa said, which was most definitely the truth. Or was it?

The final bucket of fresh, warm water was used at the end of the bath to clean away all the other suds, usually with the tub empty, and the recipient standing up, ready to sluice away all the remnants of soap and other rinses. Anna would be baring her nakedness now in a much greater degree than before, and Elsa blushed just thinking of it.

Anna popped the stopper from the tub, and the used water slid out into the drains, heading for the grey water cisterns of the castle. Elsa fetched the bucket, expertly placed by the well-tended fire in the room, and dipped her hand in. The temperature was perfect; Gerda and the staff knew their duties well. She grabbed a towel, stuffed it under her arm, and took the bucket back to Anna, looking away as much as she could.

Anna stood at the last moment, and turned her back on Elsa as well, her hands crossed over her breasts. Elsa knew that if she were an observer of this scene she would find it most comical indeed, with both sisters trying so desperately to respect each other's privacy and yet finish the task that had to be done. Her hands shook slightly as she lifted the large bucket and began pouring in a slow and steady stream. Anna quickly put her head underneath, rinsed out her hair, and then ran her hands over her body to sluice away the last of the soap and bubbles. Elsa handed the towel over the moment the bucket was empty, and then she turned away. She could hear sounds of scrubbing, then wiping, and then she heard, "Help me out, please?"

Elsa could not keep the flaring warmth from her cheeks, the warmth of the room and the warmth of her sister's proximity both colliding on her face and giving her a decided glow. She looked at Anna, now wrapped in the towel, and took her sister's outstretched hand, holding it tightly as she gingerly stepped from the tub onto a rush mat set beside it. Her frailty in that moment was all too apparent. Indeed, she seemed to waver slightly, and Elsa stepped right into the divine radius of her personal space, grasping Anna around her towelled waist.

"Lightheaded?" Elsa asked.

Anna nodded.

"Then we'll go slow, when you're ready."

Anna stood there in silence, her head ducked down, resting on Elsa's shoulder. She relaxed against Elsa's body, and put her arms around her hips.

And the most incredible welling yet of love and desire and affection for Anna grew and grew inside Elsa at this show of vulnerability and trust. She had never felt quite this protective of her.

Then Anna lifted her head, and said five words that utterly broke the queen's heart. "Do you have to go?"

For the next few moments Elsa couldn't breathe. She saw only the curtsey she had given to the King, as was right and proper of her, and the farewell that shouldn't have been the last. She had uttered the exact same words, and probably in the same vein of fear and quiet desperation.

_You'll be fine, Elsa._

And he had been wrong, and the sea voyage that should have been easy had gone terribly awry, and it had all been a freak accident, a fluke of nature, a celestial whim neither to be foreseen nor foretold. They had no bodies to bury on the headland. They had only cairns to carve and lifetimes of regret.

The Elsa of a week ago might have answered Anna's question out of a sense of duty and responsibility, giving the only answer that seemed apparent.

This Elsa was _transcendent._

She looked down into her sister's eyes, and saw those freakish waves and the many fathoms of storm-tossed water, and knew Anna's fear.

"No, Anna, I don't have to go. We can try to find another way. Maybe we can think of one together."

Anna actually blinked a couple of times as she assimilated Elsa's words. "You… want my help. To think of something together."

Elsa smiled over the pain that wrenched her heart. "I remember, when you came to me suddenly in my ice palace and told me of the storm I had caused over Arendelle, you said that we could work it out together. I remember asking what power you had to stop the winter, to stop me. Anna, it has become all too apparent to me just what power you have."

Anna's face was scrubbed and shining and perilously close. All her perfect imperfections, the light spray of freckles across her nose, her blue-green eyes, the damp strands of hair that framed her face; Elsa slid deeper in love, not able to resist the power that Anna always had in greatest supply. All that was Elsa loved every bit that was Anna.

_Love will thaw._

Her beloved face was still cast in concern, and in the silence after Elsa's words Anna opened her mouth and asked, "What power is it, Elsa? Tell me, what power could I possibly have that could be equal to yours?"

Words were useless.

"Anna, if you would permit me… I would very much like… to kiss you."

Elsa's hesitation burned away in the joy that transfixed Anna's face. "You may," she whispered.

Never in her life had Elsa been quite this nervous. She wrapped her hands around Anna's neck and tilted her mouth; ecstatic to discover that Anna had also reached up to plunge her hands into Elsa's hair.

Then their lips met, in purpose, in agreement, for the first time.

And the fracture in the fabric of time remained for them, and Elsa sank deep into the kiss, amazed at the opportunity she had to discover and explore the softness, the depth of Anna's lips, the kitten-breaths they each took as their lips pressed softly, tenderly against each other. The joy in her heart was transcendent, for she realized that Anna was kissing her back with just as much intention, just as much furor. Indeed Anna was making soft sounds of love and acceptance that simply deepened that great chasm in Elsa's stomach.

And even this could not be enough, not now when Elsa wanted only to tear open her heart and share every drop of love therein with this blessed soul. So she dared use her fingers to tilt Anna's neck, and her entire universe shifted once again as Anna's mouth opened slightly. Anna began to move her lips, slowly at first and then with growing confidence, even beginning to lightly tease Elsa by skirting the open infinite expanse of her mouth.

Then Anna nipped lightly at her lower lip, and Elsa's entire body shivered with a convulsion most delicious and new, fierce pleasure roaring down her body until it pulsed deep below in her most secret place. She had never felt anything like this, not ever before. She could not have even imagined such beauty could exist in the act of a kiss. Emboldened, Elsa ran one hand up Anna's soft bare skin and into her damp hair, suddenly pulling Anna tighter to her with her other arm about her waist. Anna's mouth opened even more in her surprise; Elsa ran her tongue over Anna's lips and plunged it into Anna's mouth.

And Anna made small, needy growls in her throat as she kissed Elsa, so intense, so hard, and Elsa was pierced with joy. She felt branded by Anna's lips, and every luminous press of lips and exchange of breath changed the foundation of Elsa's future. The world as she knew it was crumbling.

And this pleasure slowly turned into torment, for Elsa was dining so carefully on the greatest love she had ever experienced in her life, and even now she could not be absolutely certain that Anna felt something akin to romantic love for her, something beyond sisterhood, beyond kinship and the closed doors that had typified so many frozen years. Oh, to experience this just once, and never to taste it again – the thought caused an avalanche of snow to roar down her spine.

Just before the magic could ignite her palms, Anna lifted her mouth away, and before Elsa could cry the tears of a thousand years of loss and mourning, Anna turned Elsa's face, drawing it down towards her neck, and kissed her cool cheek with her soft lips, and then whispered into her ears with the most aching throb of emotion imaginable, "Oh, Elsa, please tell me, tell me…"

Her heart was clenched tight in the sweet agony of Anna's plaintive words, surely she could not feel another single drop of this exquisite love, and Elsa abruptly lifted her head. She cupped Anna's warm face in her hands, drawing her mouth so tenderly to hers once more, in a last kiss that held a symphony of promise. With that final press of lips Elsa released Anna's mouth, only to embrace her more completely than she ever had before while standing. She wrapped her arms around her Anna, encountering soft skin and towel, and held her, simply held her while many moons rose and set, and entire civilizations rose and fell. Elsa held Anna for a very long time, and the sweetness of it was painful, for she would no longer deny the deepest wishes of her heart, and for the first time she dared believe that Anna might feel the same.

The beauty of it was indescribable, made all the more precious by the tempering of fever and illness. The heat of Anna's body was power to melt every ice storm the queen could ever muster.

"Love, Anna, is your power," Elsa whispered into her ear. "Your love is the reason my heart beats. And you cannot imagine my joy in holding you so close, you are alive, Anna, thank the gods you are alive and have come back to me."

"I love you so much, Elsa. So goddamned much."

Elsa laughed and shifted the embrace, running her fingers into Anna's damp hair. "Sailor."

"Stinker."

"Pet."

"Sweetheart."

"Beloved."

…

There was the crackling of the small and well-tended fire in the bathing chamber, and the playful words that had suddenly turned more serious than Anna could imagine.

Anna was reeling on every single level of existence. She had been so lightheaded upon alighting from her bath, and her head and her heart had been so very confused with the mixed messages she kept receiving from her sister, as ever her mind ripped apart the petals of a daisy saying _she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me…_

She swore she had entered some strange alternate dimension when she heard Elsa ask permission to kiss her, a dimension where every birthday wish ever blown upon candles was suddenly answered and all at the same time, where every Christmas present was the one she had wanted for years without number, maybe she had died after all and was creating her own version of heaven.

But even heaven could not be quite this magical, quite this transcendent, because Anna could feel every press of Elsa's exquisite lips, she could sink into every fulsome curve of the kiss, she could even dare to be bold, and finally nip and breathe and sigh in the ways she had only ever imagined.

Then to be held, as if she was the single most precious thing on earth.

And to be called beloved.

_Beloved!_

Even with the truth of their kiss, this word Anna could not quite believe. Not falling so perfectly from Elsa's lips like a droplet of gold. She was just joking; it was nothing more than stinker and sailor. It couldn't be true, not really.

Her heart breaking with the cruelty of spoken words, Anna pulled herself ever so slightly away from Elsa's incredible embrace, dared to look her sister right in her oh too beautiful eyes, and repeated, "Beloved?"

She expected a blush, or a grin, or to have her hair pulled or a tongue stuck out at her, even as she remembered Elsa's strange words upon waking, that she would bare her heart given the right opportunity.

_Oh, could it be?_

Surely her heart was breaking now in dread anticipation, for in no universe could Anna have believed that Elsa could possibly love her the same way Anna loved her.

Elsa did not blush, nor did she duck her head or look away or try any number of ways to evade Anna's piercing look. "Yes, Anna. Beloved."

And there it was, the golden and luminous beauty of Elsa's heart, completely opened for the first time in Anna's presence, and the beauty of it stole all the breath from her lungs, all reason from her mind.

Anna opened her mouth to say something when an enormous crash and clatter of noise erupted in the corridor. It sounded as if the palace band had been waylaid by an ice-skating reindeer. The calamity was certainly enough to sever the tightness of feeling in the bathing room, and Anna felt a slow burn of anger and regret. "Public flogging," she muttered. "Even with the threat of public flogging."

To her everlasting chagrin, Elsa was already slowly steering her away from the tub and to the robe that hung near the fire. Anna's heart sank even lower as she saw Elsa turn her head away as she held out the robe. Anna dropped her towel and burrowed into the thick warmth of the robe, tying it around her slim waist.

It was only as Elsa guided her into the hallway that Anna recognized how deeply weary she was, how fatigued from simply taking a bath. Though maybe her knees had decided to stop working for other reasons entirely. For a moment she wondered if she would be able to walk the entire way. As they walked, Anna noticed Kai peek around the corner of the waiting room. Her steward appeared slightly abashed, and he disappeared just as quick.

"What's up with Kai?" Anna muttered as Elsa continued to hold her and walk slowly towards the room.

"You'll see," Elsa replied, and the little stinker definitely had a secret up her sleeve, for the note of conspiracy in her voice was far too apparent.

The servants had been in to tidy the sickroom while the sisters were away. The sheets had been changed, new nightdresses and clean underclothes set out, and a steaming cauldron of hot chocolate awaited them, next to a plate of Anna's favourite sandwiches. "They are too good to us," Anna whispered.

They had no sooner entered the room than there was a knock on the open door. Sera Avundir stood there with clean bandages in her hands. "I will need to change Princess Anna's dressing," she said. Anna clenched her teeth and she would have given an exasperated sigh had Elsa not lovingly kissed her temple and given her to the physician's hands.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," her older sister promised, and then she had disappeared behind the closing door. Anna was only half-heartedly glad for the privacy given, for Sera had her perch on the edge of the bed while she opened Anna's robe and gently took off the moistened and pink-tinged bandage.

Anna did not look down at the hole in her chest, but there was still a deep ache there, not nearly as terrible as the ache in her heart. Confusion raked icy fingers down her memories, and she wondered why, oh why had Elsa kissed her? Could she really mean…?

And would Anna ever find the right moment to share the deepest desire of her heart? Could she ever dare to say the words she had practiced so many times in the vault of her mind while Elsa tossed in the state of fever? Why was it so hard to say those words, especially as Elsa had just kissed her, and like… _kissed her_ kissed her, definitely other-than-sisterly kissed her?

For god's sake, Elsa had just called her beloved!

She was not so far gone in her misery as to not hear Sera's question, "How are you feeling now, Princess?"

"Tired, Sera. So tired. But I really wish I could stay awake for a while. I really need to have a certain conversation with Elsa."

"I will continue to prescribe rest and more of my awful tonics, Your Highness."

"Even in your chalet?"

"So your sister told you?" The Physician sounded pleased. "Oh, yes, Your Highness, I think a month in the mountains together away from the castle and the affairs of the kingdom will work miracles for both of you. While I may seem to be the physician of your physical health alone, I take just as great an interest in your mental and emotional wellbeing."

Anna listened while Sera fixed the new bandage to her chest, wrapping it with gauze around her entire torso, never thinking of the physician's role in quite that mien before.

"The two of you have been apart far too long," Sera Avundir continued. "And I consider it my duty to make sure that you both receive the mental and emotional caregiving that may be just as necessary at this time. I'm sure you will find ample opportunity for every conversation you've ever wished to have with Queen Elsa."

"No kingdom, no worries?" Anna asked, feeling more exhausted than ever and mad at herself for it. There was so very much to discuss with Elsa just now, in private, and the thought of a month alone at the chalet was extremely comforting.

As long as Elsa kept her promise and didn't go away tomorrow to fix Olaf and suddenly get eaten by a dragon or fall down a crevice or get kidnapped by pirates and murdered…

There was great knot of despair in her throat, unnoticed by her physician.

"Exactly." The physician tied the last knot and nodded her head. She even helped steer Anna to the dressing screen, handing her new underclothes and a nightgown. Anna called herself a ninny and a fool and swallowed over that unbecoming knot of misery in her throat. She forced her attention to the task at hand, already missing Elsa's icy gowns that felt so very cool and good on the skin. This fabric, though still obviously meant for a princess, was just inferior in comparison. She heard the door open and close as she finished dressing, which was Sera leaving her in relative privacy.

Now she needed only one person. Where was she? How could she kiss her like that and then just let her be? Was she really going to stay? But how else could Olaf be saved? Anna's mind, understandably muzzy with sickness and exhaustion, could not think of a single scintillating idea on dear Olaf's behalf. Elsa would have to leave to save him, and then some disaster or calamity would strike, for poor Anna could not even take a bath without the universe interfering in her designs. If not even a bath was considered sacred, there was no way Elsa could return from the North Mountain unscathed. She would go off, and then she would die, and Anna would wander the empty halls of the castle forever, inconsolable and bleating like a lost lamb for her beloved sister.

Anna let herself sulk just a little as she made her way to her bed, which was very close to the Queen's bed withal, which meant nothing as the Queen's bed was currently empty. Where could she be?

There was a knock on the door and Anna called out, "Come in!" She hoped against hope it would be Elsa, but it was Gerda, with a brush in her hands and a hair tie. "May I assist my lady with her hair?"

Anna nodded and Gerda entered, sitting behind her on the edge of the bed, raising the brush to carefully pull through her long damp hair. "Where's Elsa?" Anna asked, hoping she didn't sound so desperate and needy as she felt.

"I believe she is conversing with Kai, and should be here shortly," Gerda replied, with many a soothing pull of the brush, and then her skilled fingers expertly plaited Anna's hair into a single braid for sleeping.

Thank the gods Anna truly did not have long to wait or frustration would have steamed her hair completely dry in minutes. Only a few minutes after Anna had been propped up in her bed came another knock on the door. Her heart in her throat, Anna called that the door was open, and to her heart's delight, it was Elsa on the other side.

And Elsa was radiant with joy and mirth, and the look of it on her face and body was incredible to behold; Anna had already been soul-struck with love for her sister yet she still felt the tell-tale tingle in her skin, and that oh-so precious dip of her stomach, all dense with feeling. She looked at Elsa's lips and her heart fluttered with the memory of their incredible kiss. Kristoff, bless his heart, had nothing to offer her, not in comparison with the radiant magnificence of Elsa's giving lips.

If only she could leap to her feet and press her mouth to Elsa's just one more time, just to feel the extraordinary depths of love and affection she felt in her sister's kiss. If only to convince herself that this wasn't all just a sick-dream.

"Your Highness," Elsa said, bowing and smiling so wide the grin nearly slid off the edges of her face, "in honour of your recovery, and as a small token of my inestimable esteem for your person, I have commandeered a portion of the palace band for a personal performance of all Your Highness's favourite songs." She lightly clapped her hands and the small band entered the sickroom, sitting on chairs brought for them by Kai and the other servants.

Anna's mouth opened wide as Gerda brought the hot chocolate and sandwiches closer to the Princess, and then, if her heart wasn't bursting enough, Elsa got in the other side of the bed, propped herself up with pillows, and then tucked Anna right by her side, one arm around her shoulders, the other on Anna's elbow. Gerda actually placed a plate of sandwiches in Anna's lap, and then Elsa said, "Maestro, if you please, if I may make the first suggestion. _Giovanno D'Arco_, opening theme, by Verdi."

"Of course, Your Majesty." There was but a moment of the instruments tuning, which was enough for Anna to look up into Elsa's joyful face. "Joan of Arc?" Anna asked.

"It's a rather new composition out of Italy. I couldn't wrangle over a soprano who knew how to sing it, though. So we'll start with this, and then it's all yours. Eat a sandwich, you're far too thin." Elsa smirked at her sister as she took part of a sandwich for herself.

Anna turned to look back at the band, which had begun playing the opening theme. She felt dazed, and rather absently took a sandwich and began eating it while enjoying the beauty of the piece. How just like her sister to remember Anna's stories of Joan-the-painting, and find yet another way to prove just what a fabulous sister she was. Elsa was being incredibly thoughtful, and her warmth against Anna now was but a shadow compared to the warmth of the kiss they had shared, the mere thought of which still caused Anna's heart to hiccup and her knees to turn to jelly.

_Please don't let that be the only one. Don't let her leave and get eaten or lost or murdered. Please._

Anna managed to eat two sandwiches and drink nearly two cups of hot chocolate before her weariness began to wear her down. She didn't want the magic of the music and the warmth of her sister's nearness to end, but the pain in her chest was growing, and she even coughed a couple times. She leaned more against Elsa, closed her eyes, and was vaguely aware of Gerda taking her plate away.

"Let's finish with the _Pie Jesu_," Elsa said quietly. Kai trotted in a young woman, who appeared to be no more than eleven years old, and slightly terrified at a command performance for the Queen and Princess.

But then the angelic voice began singing with a depth beyond her years, and all the magic of the Requiem Mass was apparent in her voice, and Anna let herself float on the celestial clouds conjured into being by the words and the emotions behind them, snuggled deep and comfortable against her sister.

The last note of the piece was flawless, and had this been anything but a sickroom, the ovation would have brought the house down.

As it was, Elsa looked down at her sister, who she believed had just fallen asleep or was perilously close to it, and when the shimmering note died down she quietly said, "Bravo. My sincere thanks to all of you. You have no idea how much I appreciate this."

The conductor bowed to them and murmured, "Your Majesty, it is always an honour to be of service."

They filed past the Queen and the Princess, holding their instruments carefully so as not to disturb Anna's slumber. Kai and Gerda were the last to leave, and Elsa's eyes were shining in gratitude as she looked at her most faithful servants. The love they had for each other as husband and wife was reflected in the service provided to the royal sisters, and it was a shining example of faith and trust that Elsa took deeply to heart. "Kai, thank you. So much."

"I do apologize for the ruckus earlier. I pray that Princess Anna will not resort to… public flogging?"

"I believe you all are fully forgiven. Gerda, could you assist me with Anna?" The woman came over and together they tried to get Anna to lie down. She wasn't fully asleep yet, and when a look of pain crossed her face Elsa felt that pain in her heart. She clutched at Elsa, and Elsa just smiled at her, said a few soothing words, and soon they were laying side by side in Anna's bed.

"Rest well," Gerda softly called as she blew out the candles and closed the door.

Anna snuggled even closer before deep breathing signified that she had again fallen asleep. For the moment Elsa was still too struck with the beauty of the _Pie Jesu_ and the indescribable sense of longing she felt for Anna to do anything but stare at her sister's face. The desire to kiss her again was crushing, but she finally set it aside with restraint she didn't know she could possess. Anna shivered slightly, and Elsa brought the covers up higher, tucking them around Anna's neck.

Then she continued to look at Anna, and thought back to coronation day. Catching glimpses of her sister at varying times throughout the years had not prepared her for Anna's grown-up beauty, though the story of the ruined cake (which somehow had sprouted a bust of one of their ancestors) verified that the Princess' rather hasty and clumsy nature had not significantly changed over the years. Elsa had been nervous enough throughout the actual coronation that she forced her attention way from Anna, but that had all changed when they stood together at the ball.

Elsa should have recognized it even then, that seeing Anna was like seeing a beautiful stranger, and her affection that night could almost be classified as infatuation and desire. Until she shut Anna out, again. Which led to everything else with Hans and their ill-fated (and thankfully short) engagement, the stolen glove and heated words, and the loss of control.

Still the newfound peace in her heart stood strong, the loneliness vanquished forever, and Elsa found she could think of the past without any sense of recrimination or regret. The present moment was far too precious. She had just kissed Anna in the bathing room, and Anna had kissed her back and said she loved her.

If only she could ease the last splinter of doubt in her mind. Was Anna even tonight just being a sick and suffering sister who kissed for comfort alone? She said love, but she did not say 'in love'. What a universe of difference was in that single word!

Elsa recalled the day of the skating party, how Anna had entered holding Kristoff's hand, her cheeks rosy and delightful. Yes, she had come right up to Elsa after entering the forecourt, but it did not take much imagining to think that perhaps Anna's gift to the young man had prompted a hug, or even a kiss or two. Especially as he had his arm over her shoulders during the snow-works demonstration later, and Anna had kissed his cheek before he had given her a very tight hug and then Elsa had been escorted back to her quarters.

She must ask, to be sure. She didn't particularly want to think of Kristoff as a rival, but she wouldn't let her sister choose the young man without knowing how Elsa cared for her. The idea of Anna choosing Kristoff was unbearable, and created such an avalanche of worry in her heart that Elsa deliberately forced her mind away and began thinking of Olaf.

How to restore him without physically going to him? She could not, and would not, leave on the morrow, not in the face of Anna's worry. Perhaps there was an ice-carriage of some sort she could conjure, that might have some latent energy to survive a trip up the mountain, and he could come back safely inside it.

Elsa was wrenched from her thoughts when Anna suddenly coughed long and deep, curling over her stomach, though it had not the hacking and tearing quality of days ago. Her head lolled off of Elsa's shoulder as she shifted in restless sleep, turning away from Elsa and burrowing into her pillow. Elsa felt desolate at the space suddenly revealed between them, the warmth of Anna's body dissipating so quickly. She repressed a desire to tuck herself along Anna's back, and tucked the blanket in tighter instead.

A fist clenched her heart, and Elsa suddenly decided she needed fresh air. The windows of the sickroom had been opened daily, but were closed now with the onset of night. Ever so carefully Elsa rolled out of Anna's bed, and then she drew on a pair of slippers and her robe. She ran her fingers over her braid to be sure she looked presentable, and then she slipped out of the room, looking back at her dear sister before closing the door.

Elsa noticed guards at either end of the hallway, and both of their heads swivelled in her direction as she began heading away from the hospital. She passed one of them, and the young man did not say a word, nor did he stare, but she had not gone ten steps when she realized that he was walking ever so silently and respectfully behind her. She could not order him away, not when she knew that Kai had increased security within the castle after the incident on the bell tower. Neither Elsa nor Anna would have become so desperately ill if they had been found sooner, but it was only the Steward's dawn rounds that revealed the open door and empty chambers that precipitated the search for the royal pair.

It was in that bitter memory that Elsa slowly and deliberately made her way towards that tower once more. The guard stayed always behind her, and soon his step was soothing to her, indicative of the watchful protection and acceptance of her people. It took a while before Elsa finally made her way to the bell tower and began walking up the steps. She could barely recall the desperate nightmare flight she had taken more than a week ago. With the horror of realizing she had been kissing Anna without permission, with realizing just where her hands might have gone next on her sister's body, the terrors of the worst nightmare of her life had reared their vile hands and captured her heart and sight. She did not recognize this place any more at this moment despite knowing how long she had spent here in Anna's arms in the frigid unending night.

The wind was chill as she emerged on the final parapet but her natural immunity seemed renewed, and she barely felt the cold. She stood near the casement and looked out upon her slumbering kingdom. The guard's footsteps halted, and she realized that he was standing on the parapet with her, taking a stance near the entrance.

There were lights twinkling in the village, and upon the houses that led up into the mountains. But the most beautiful light of all was coming from the massive aurora, its green shimmering sheets that danced and played in the vault of the heavens, trembling pink along the edges, and the sight of it transfixed the Queen of Arendelle.

And she lifted a palm of her hand, and intricate designs of snow leapt joyfully from her skin into the air, and she heard the sharp intake of the guard's breath. She lifted her other palm and sent yet another cascade of snowy delight into the summer air.

Oh yes, this was her heart and her joy, to use her power for goodness and beauty and love. What a beautiful smile upon her face now as she lifted her hands and sent an enormous tsunami of snow into the air, to shimmer and fracture the northern lights, to dance in abandon with the celestial light. Perhaps she did it for the delight of the unnamed guard behind her, or for the person or two who may happen to look from windows and see a most bewitching addition to the northern lights, yet perhaps she did it only for herself.

So she lifted her hands again as the snow twinkled out of sight, and another massive wave of icy snowflakes leaped tremendously high into the sky, into the dancing ocean of the aurora, immense over the entire castle and fjord and oh so beautiful in companionship. The waves of light and snow complemented each other so perfectly, dancing partners of an eternal waltz, played out upon the stage of the darkened sky. She was gratified to hear yet another intake of astonished breath from the guard behind her.

How Anna would have loved to be with her now! It was on a night just like this that they had built the original Olaf…

And the solution of Olaf's salvation came to Queen Elsa, as simple and virtuous as the last of the snow that winked out in the skies high above the bell tower. She held the answer in her mind and felt the joy increase tenfold in her heart.

Love had found a way.

She slowly turned around, and saw the smile on the guard's face, which he quickly wiped away as he realized that she was looking right at him. Elsa walked up to him, and quietly asked, "Do you trust your Queen?"

"With my life and my honour," he replied, unhesitating.

Elsa nodded, and still that incredible joy waltzed in her heart, stepping in time to the northern lights, and she was filled with life and with love. It was like a key to her heart, and never could Elsa have realized that she owned both lock and key, that she needed no one to save her, that her courage alone could open the portals of her deepest love. She was a whole person, albeit humanly flawed, and she would offer the entirety of her intact and precious soul to the woman she loved.

The return journey to their sickroom was beautiful and silent, the guard's steps never faltering. He stopped and took up his stance at the end of the hallway and Elsa carried on alone. She looked neither left nor right as she continued on, her eye single, her intention divine, fulfilling promises with every step.

To open the door to their chamber, and see the faintest wash of the aurora playing on Anna's face and hair. Elsa did not hesitate in going to the farther side of Anna's bed, slipping off her robe and slippers, and sliding between the sheets. Neither did she hesitate in snuggling with Anna, tucking her legs so very close to Anna's slightly curled knees, her hand over Anna's hip. She was rewarded with a murmur of love and acceptance as Anna cuddled right back against her, her sleepy hand grasping Elsa's.

Elsa kissed Anna's neck, and fell asleep to the play of the emerald and rose of the northern lights.

...

Merry Christmas to all my readers. Thanks for the reviews, faves, and follows. If you are enjoying the story, please drop a line in the box below. It's so much appreciated - makes all my writing worth the time and effort if I know you are there. The title song is All of Me by John Legend. If you want to check out the _Pie Jesu_, just search for it with Jackie Evancho and you'll see what I mean.


	12. Chapter 12 - Obsidian Butterfly

**Chapter Twelve – Obsidian Butterfly**

Anna came to awareness slowly yet peacefully, without the wracking coughs that had so bothered her for the last few days. She also realized almost immediately that she was waking alone. Her body still felt so heavy and lethargic, and it took effort to turn her head and shield her eyes from the sunlight streaming into the empty sickroom.

Empty. Elsa was not here.

Panic flooded her mouth with vinegar. She wouldn't have gone up the mountain, would she? Not without telling Anna, not without saying goodbye.

There was a glass of water next to her bed, along with a little silver bell. She sat up in bed with a hand to her chest, and gratefully downed the water. Then she took the little bell and shook it, smiling to herself and only then feeling her braid, to see if it had remained mostly intact throughout her sleeping.

Not quite, but no surprises there. Ralph the Night-Hair-Dresser was a fairly constant visitor during the night-time hours, or so had teased her mom on a nearly daily basis as she helped to tame the morning mane.

To her surprise, it was Elsa herself who opened the door at the summons of the little bell. Her older sister looked like rainbows and ducklings, the days of rest from her fever-illness finally dissipating the last of the exhaustion that had rounded all her corners. She had such a gentle and beautiful smile on her face, she was wearing a new ice dress without a cape, and her hair was braided in that thick cable that flowed down one shoulder, studded with everlasting snowflakes and strands of blue ribbon.

Anna drank in the sight of her. Her soul was parched, for it had crawled endlessly on ancient and distant dunes ever seeking an oasis, and she could scarcely comprehend that the answer to her deepest thirst had been beside her for all the days of her life, a phantom and an enigma turned so tangible and real, and it had been Elsa all along.

Anna thought back to the morning of Elsa's coronation, and remembered how she had wondered if she would meet "the one". She sang and dreamed of finally having a chance to be noticed by someone. It had been crazy to dream that she would find romance, but what was even crazier was where she found every answer to her heart's desire.

Her chance to find true love, and here it was. Standing in the doorway before her, beautiful and perfect and achingly real. Right beside her, where it had been all along.

Anna's throat constricted with the pain of longing, and a million butterflies with obsidian wings fluttered in her stomach, slicing with every beat and turn.

No one ever said that true love could feel this magnificent.

Elsa was smiling, warm and indulgent, and she bore a breakfast tray in her ungloved hands. She approached Anna's bed with poise and grace, setting down the tray before leaning over to caress Anna's face with one hand.

The door was wide open, and yet Elsa still briefly kissed her on her upturned lips, ever so gentle and sweet, her cool fingers caressing Anna's cheek.

Anna was so surprised that she could not respond to the kiss before Elsa drew away once more. There was a bewitching blush on Elsa's cheeks, and she looked away as if embarrassed by her spontaneity. She even reached over to lift the lid on the tray and said, "Now, Anna, you must eat…"

Anna reached up with her hands and pulled Elsa's face back to hers, delighted in the surprise that blessed Elsa's features, and fervently kissed her once more, as deeply and thoroughly as she dared with that damn door wide open. After a near bruising crush of lips, Anna abruptly released Elsa's face and said, "There. Now you can lecture me about breakfast."

Elsa stood as if dazed and actually shook her head, ever so slightly, all the while staring at Anna.

"It's like you've never seen me before," Anna gently teased, just because she could.

Elsa cleared her throat and said, "I haven't. Not this side of you. I – I think I like it."

"I'm glad. It's nice to see you stutter for a change. I'm usually the one all tongue-tied. Come on, then. Breakfast lecture. Do I get milk sops, or something a bit more substantial? I'm rather hungry. Are you going to eat with me?"

Elsa laughed as she finally lifted the lid of the tray, showing only a single portion of all of Anna's favourite breakfast things, the porridge with lingonberry jam, the crispbread and caviar, and a generous mug of hot chocolate. "I've already eaten, sweetheart. This is all for you," Elsa said.

Ugh, there was also another mug of Sera's awful medicine.

And it was that mug that the dastardly Elsa held out to Anna first.

"Oh, couldn't it wait until after? You know, after the next decade or so?"

"The sooner you drink, the sooner you are well enough to go to the chalet," Elsa reasoned. "I should hate to leave you behind."

Dammit.

"Fine," Anna mock-growled. She took the mug and stared at it, discomfited by all the floating bits of herb on top. She scrunched her eyes shut and downed the awful concoction as fast as she could, greatly relieved not to detect any more of that syrup of poppies. She had slept far too much over the last week.

Meh.

She opened her eyes and handed back the mug, which Elsa traded for the tray. "Seriously, no reward for being a good girl and taking my medicine?" Anna pouted, wondering just how far she could push this radically different incarnation of her older sister. Elsa had been many things in the slender weeks since the great freeze, but she had never seen this particular Elsa before. This Elsa that dared to kiss her with the door open, and who joked with her as if she wasn't the Queen of an entire freaking kingdom.

And Elsa removed the last little covering on the tray with a heart-melting flourish of those beautiful wrists, which had been a teacup upended over a small offering of chocolates.

For the first time in her life, Anna was disappointed to see chocolate. She had been hoping for some… other kind of reward.

Elsa presented them to her, and Anna glumly popped one into her mouth. "Good," Elsa said, affectionately tugging Anna's sleep-tangled braid. "Eat your breakfast. It's time to move out of the hospital wing. I get to take you home today."

Home.

Home would no longer be a physical location for the Princess of Arendelle. Yes, the castle had been her home for her entire life, but didn't they say that home is where the heart is? Anna had only to look at the platinum-blonde woman standing before her to recognize her home in every one of Elsa's curves, in the openness of her smile, in the sparkle of magic that tingled in her palms.

Surely there was no home better than the softness of Elsa's lips. She wanted to reside there forever and ever.

"Elsa, please tell me that we will get some privacy very soon," Anna said as she stirred jam into her porridge. "There is something I need to talk to you about, but it seems like this entire castle is conspiring against me."

Anna glanced up in time to see a brief look of terror on Elsa's face, there and gone again almost too quickly for recognition. It was the same kind of look she saw the day of the skating party when Anna had entered holding Kristoff's hand.

"You know what? Close that door, please," Anna said, not wanting to wait one more minute to unload the pressure on her heart and soul. She had to discover more about the night on the bell tower, and then Elsa had better have a good explanation for all these kisses. Anna truly wasn't sure how much longer she could be brave, for should Elsa reject her now she would want only to crawl back into the oblivion of pneumonia and illness.

There was a hint of trepidation on Elsa's face, and she turned without a word to comply with Anna's request.

Not before Kai knocked on the doorframe and poked his head in.

"Goddammit!" Anna seethed, her bowl of porridge toppling over and spilling over the breakfast tray. She used her spoon to fling clumps of oatmeal back into the bowl, suddenly realizing that it was just a tad too quiet in here. She looked up only to see a look of utter consternation on Kai's face, and complete and utter mirth on Elsa's.

Elsa silently mouthed, _"Sailor."_

"I am truly sorry to disturb you Princess Anna, but I require Queen Elsa's attention on a rather urgent matter."

"Public _flogging,_ Kai," Anna muttered darkly. Then she saw Elsa glance between them, and she knew that look on her sister's face, the look of being torn apart, caught between conflicting responsibilities, and now as ever Anna had to do the right thing, even if it was the last thing she wanted to do. She swallowed over her disappointment and said, "Elsa, go on. How long will it take, Kai?"

"I don't know yet, Highness."

"Anna, I'll return as fast as I can. Promise. Just wait for me, I'll come and take you home." With that her sister came quickly to her bedside, planted a kiss on the top of Anna's head, and then whirled away. Soon all Anna could hear was the solid clacking of her heels on the floor of the hallway.

Anna sighed. Their vacation at the chalet could not come fast enough. If even a single person so much as breathed about paperwork and managing the affairs of the kingdom while they enjoyed their holidaying, Anna would throw whole crocks of oatmeal at the lot of them and call upon every bird of the mountain ranges to peck them clean to their bones. Don't think she wouldn't.

Anna didn't know she was so hungry until she had devoured everything on her tray. She even debated licking the insides of the bowl but decided that would be the moment that Elsa would return, just as her tongue slopped around the bowl, and never would Elsa kiss her again with that awful image in her head.

Fine.

She could be princessy.

Just as she was about to ring the little bell and ask for another heaping portion of breakfast, there came another knock on the open door. Sera Avundir bustled inside and Anna suffered the millionth check of her vitals. "You're feeling better, aren't you?" Sera remarked as Anna huffed her irritation during her lungs check, marred by a stray cough or two.

"Yes, and I do thank you for helping me so much, Sera," the Princess managed to say. "You must not have had much sleep for the past while."

"You two deserve each other, you know," Sera abruptly said. "Both you and Elsa are hot-headed, stubborn, and intensely loyal. I would burst in pride if I didn't want to wring both your necks."

"What happened while I was sick, Sera?" Anna asked.

"Oh no, I'm not touching that," Sera replied. "You want to know, you ask Queen Elsa. Be patient, Princess. We'll move you back to your own rooms today. If you eat and sleep really well, we might be able to leave for Lost Island Lake by tomorrow morning."

"Your bribery is getting rather subtle, physician," Anna replied. "You used to just tempt me with chocolate. Now you tempt me with summer vacations and mountain solitude."

"With just the right amount of sisterly companionship, don't forget that." Anna opened her mouth, but Sera continued, "Now, please don't overdo things today. I've given Elsa the same warning. You both need to take things easy and slow until I can get you up on my mountain and force some relaxation on you both."

"Well, when you put it so nicely."

Sera smiled as she hung her stethoscope back around her neck. "You can get dressed now. I'm sure someone will be here shortly to escort you back to your room."

"Elsa won't be that much longer, would she?"

"Who am I to know the ways of queens?"

"You, Sera, are far more perceptive than you let on, and you know it. I begin to wonder why you employ diversion and aloofness so greatly in your patient care. Do those walls of yours truly serve any real purpose?"

Sera Avundir looked at the Princess with a gaze so shocked and strong that at first Anna thought she had offended her physician, and wanted to backpedal her words with all the apologies that would tumble from a clumsy tongue, but then the doctor finally smiled. "As are you, Princess. I would not have wished this experience upon either of you. But your powers of perception have certainly grown throughout this entire ordeal. Let us hope you grow the wit to temper your tongue as well." She lightly bowed as she exited the room, leaving Anna feeling decidedly huffy and just slightly ashamed.

Maybe a whole month at the chalet wouldn't be so glorious after all, if she had to stomach the bitterness of Sera's honesty and temper.

Argh. It would be fine. Great, in fact. At least there wouldn't be anything to pull Elsa away. She would stuff her sister full of chocolates, and then when she couldn't possibly take another step Anna could unload every secret wish of her heart. Elsa couldn't even run away from her when she was done.

Well, actually, she could. An entire fjord hadn't stopped her sister the last time she decided to get away. Even when it was all liquid and melty. A stomach full of chocolate wasn't much of a leash, to keep Elsa at Anna's side.

Hmm.

Perhaps other motivations would suffice. Elsa had somehow become extremely kissable.

What a pleasant thought.

Anna set aside her breakfast tray and carefully got up. Only when her bare feet touched the cold floor did she remember poor Olaf. Her hands flew to her mouth. She hadn't helped Elsa at all. Olaf was still stuck on that mountain, and Elsa had to find a way to save him, and if Anna didn't come up with something completely brilliant really soon, Elsa would leave her and do it by herself after all. She'd go up that abominable mountain, and become prey to pirates and wolves and rogue snow monsters and hidden chasms. She'd leave and she'd never come back and still Anna would not have told her the truth that ever burned like the greatest of bonfires within her heart!

Olaf, Olaf. How to save the snowman?

Anna knew she was distracted when she tried to put her dress on backwards. The ache in her chest was still present, though it was more like a low grinding burn now than the knife it had been when the catheter had been there. Had Elsa been present when they carved a hole in her chest and put that tube in? What did Elsa think of that awful thing sticking out of Anna's body?

Suddenly Anna remembered the events of the night before. How Elsa had commandeered a command performance of the palace band just for Anna's pleasure. The music had been as much as feast, and Anna had gorged herself on every golden note that erupted into the air of her sickroom. She had fallen nearly asleep with the angelic voice of that young girl singing the _Pie Jesu._

Was it only her imagination that Elsa left her for a time, during that horrible witching hour of the night? At least she came back, just like she promised.

Anna was exhausted by the time she finished dressing herself. She looked at the errant and wild protrusions of hair springing out from her sleeping braid. Anna could not quite muster the energy required to comb out her hair and put it back in braids.

Besides, if she stalled, maybe Elsa would get here in time to do it herself. Wouldn't that be nice?

So Anna sat on the edge of her bed, a grimace of pain on her face, a hand over the hole between her breasts. She hung her head and tried to think of Olaf, dear snowy buck-toothed Olaf, and who could have known that his life was linked so completely to Elsa's?

Her thoughts were as tangled as her hair and did not lead to any sort of epiphany.

Once again it was Gerda who came next, to help comb out Anna's hair and to take the breakfast tray away. Once again she murmured of patience to the young royal, and if one more person had the audacity to tell Anna to be patient, she would personally bash them over the head with an armoured gauntlet. Don't think she wouldn't.

Her ire and her worry actually increased when she heard the tell-tale clack of heels on the floor. Elsa better have some darn good reasons for all these interruptions. Which Elsa would be walking through the door this time? The Queen? The sister? The shameless flirt?

_Please let her be the flirt._

Then she was there, standing in the doorway, and she was the same Elsa as she had been before, the one with a platinum smile to match her platinum hair, the one whose joy somehow radiated from her very skin, as if she had somehow used the days of illness to discover some vast secret of the universe. What on earth could make her so happy?

"You're very smiley lately," Anna remarked, saying her thoughts out loud like she always did.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Elsa replied, coming into the room and holding out her hands to help Anna stand up. "I'm with you."

Anna stood up carefully, gratified that Elsa had offered her cool hands without Anna having to ask for them. "Yes, you're with me," Anna said slowly. "But are you _with me_ with me? Or just with me? What kind of with me is it, exactly?"

"I'm missing the finer distinction that you must be aiming for," Elsa replied, her voice merry. "Do you want to try that sentence again?"

"Argh. See, my mouth doesn't make any sense."

"Hmm, does it have to? I rather like it the way it is."

"That!" Anna nearly shouted. "That's what I mean. You're being…" and Anna abruptly shut her mouth. What if she called Elsa a flirt and that wasn't what Elsa was doing at all, and then she'd give Anna an _are you crazy?_ kind of look, and Anna would have to admit that yes, apparently she was crazy, because she was reading far too much into every nuance of word, every gesture and every smile seeking validation for a truly crazy hypothesis. Elsa was being nice. A good older sister. That's all.

Dammit!

"Ahoy, there. Elsa calling Anna."

"Anna's here. Mostly."

"I see. I'm wondering if Anna wants to play."

Anna stared at her sister's openly joyous face. "Play?"

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

…

The ballroom had been shuttered up tight once more, all the doors and windows closed. Though it was a blazing and brilliant summer day outside, the large room was murky and still, evoking a sense of midnight. Try as she might, Anna could not remember playing in the ballroom with Elsa; her most beloved and truly false memories of her sister revolved around the outdoors, and as Elsa closed the heavy doors behind them, Anna felt a keen knife of loss for those tainted memories, stolen by Grand Pabbie's supposed benevolence.

Elsa said he did it to be safe.

Safety was overrated. What was life without a little adventure?

Anna had also heard Elsa command complete privacy from their Steward, and there was not a single mention of public flogging or any other kind of jest, for the Queen had spoken, and the Queen would be obeyed in this command as in all others.

It was almost frightening to see how readily Elsa changed her persona, swapping identities as easily as she had once swapped gloves.

But the woman who turned to face her with the ballroom doors closed was the woman who stole Anna's heart this morning and yesterday morning and many mornings before that; there was one constant person underneath the gloves and the responsibilities of the kingdom, and it was that woman whom Anna loved as she should not.

Anna knew that this exercise had something to do with Olaf, and her concern for her little snowman friend was the only thing keeping her tongue leashed right now. Though she had been anxious for a quiet moment to talk to her sister, this was not it.

Elsa came up to her, and took her hand, and escorted her to the middle of the ballroom. Then she stopped, and her face was mysterious and delightful in the dimness of the huge open space. She looked up and around the room, and then dove down into Anna's eyes. Once again her gaze was smouldering, and for a brief moment Anna felt even more naked than she had while taking the last bucket of her bath with Elsa the night before.

Her mouth suddenly downy and dry, Anna licked her lips and said, "What are we doing here, exactly?"

"I have an idea," Elsa replied, rather slowly. "We played together here and built Olaf that fateful night everything changed. When I created him again on the top of the mountain, he was the purest expression of my joy and happiness, and also of my love and protection for you. I thought that we might play together again, and build a snow-woman to go with our snowman. I could hopefully bring her to life, give her a large flurry as protection, and send her up the mountain with the guards to bring Olaf back in safety with her." Elsa was wringing her hands together, and when she realized it, she abruptly stopped. Anna recognized it as her safety mechanism, and her heart blossomed both for Elsa's growth as a person and for her great idea.

"Do… do you think that might work?" Elsa added.

Anna took Elsa's other hand and squeezed both of them. "It's simple and it's brilliant, Elsa," she replied. "Besides, I'm sure Olaf would love a lady-friend of his own."

Elsa spoke no other response; she kept looking at Anna for a tremendously long moment with unknown emotions cluttering up her perfect eyes. Anna's stomach bottomed out yet again, it must have been the millionth time by now that Elsa had caused such a reaction, and Anna fell even deeper into both love and despair.

Tomorrow, and the prospect of the chalet, could not come fast enough to suit the impulsive Princess. Not with truth and desire burning up her tongue.

Elsa was hesitating, and Anna could not know why, so she dropped her hands and grinned at her older sister, saying, "All right, then. Do the magic, Elsa, do the magic!" She missed the comfort of Elsa's hands the moment she released them, and she tried to hide the wave of exhaustion that rippled over her body, accompanied by a strange and near alarming pressure in her heart and chest. The pain was singular and distinct, though thankfully fleeting in length, and she managed to mask her face so that Elsa wouldn't know.

And Elsa smiled that incredible coruscating smile of joy as she revolved her hands about each other, and in that space between her palms a small ball of brilliant white began to form, whirling and sparking with magic and ice, and Elsa suddenly tossed that ball high up into the air. It exploded with a flurry of snow; fat snowflakes with distinct edges began to sift slowly and wondrously through the air.

No matter how many times Anna had seen Elsa use her magic, she could only gape at the reality of it, how she changed the very dimensions of the space surrounding them, coaxing such life and beauty out of nothing. She could not help the enchanted giggle that came from her throat as she lifted her face and her one hand to the gently falling snow, her other hand pressing lightly against the wound in her chest. It was unbelievable that they were indoors, and it was snowing, and her sister's face was bright with love and pride.

"This is amazing," Anna whispered, and then she tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and allowed one of the perfect crystals to land on her tongue.

She nearly missed the look of desire and intention that crossed Elsa's face as the snowflake dissolved on her tongue; as it was, Anna's heart gave another particularly painful thump as she recognized that emotion on her sister's face, for she had worn it so often on her own.

The memory of their kiss the night before came back to her in dizzying intensity; indeed it seemed to overwhelm her already overcharged synapses, and Anna suddenly felt weak and faint. She dipped her head and bent over slightly, and was immensely gratified to hear Elsa's sudden, "Anna, pet, are you all right?" Elsa's hands quickly closed over her own, and Anna realized she had instantly conjured a bench of ice only as she gently lowered Anna down on it.

"I'm all right," Anna whispered with her head down, getting back her bearings, while ever the soft and dry snow fell upon them and around them, a white and soft cocoon. Elsa knelt in front of her, her face anxious. One hand cupped Anna's cheek and drew her gaze.

"Maybe I should take you back to your room," Elsa suggested. "Sera threatened me with rather unpleasant things if I shouldn't take good care of you."

"Please don't. I want to be here. I want to be with you."

"You want to be with me?" Elsa lovingly teased. "You mean, _with me_ with me?"

Minx.

How desperately Anna wished she could just wrangle her depleted body into obedience, for she desired nothing more than the exuberance she once had in spades, the often ill-fated and clumsy enthusiasm for life that rendered the suits of armour into mortal enemies and led to ancestral busts sprouting from cakes. If only she could be that Anna, she could tease and flirt right back, and maybe tackle her sister into one of the mounds of snow forming around them.

This Anna, however, felt the dull pain in her chest where the catheter had been, a hideous squeeze of her altered heart, and the swarms of faint around her eyes were slow to leave.

"I want to be with you forever," Anna whispered, looking deep into Elsa's eyes.

Elsa remained strong and present, never shying away from the words or the fervour of feeling behind them. A low and keening sort of cry came from Elsa's throat, and she suddenly rose tall on her knees to wrap Anna in her arms. It was a hard and fierce sort of embrace, the kind that was painful as well as beautiful, and Anna held Elsa with as much strength as she could gather from her watery bones.

"Anna, I love you. With all my heart I love you."

Anna's throat constricted in the deepest of longing and love, and though she wanted to reciprocate the words she simply could not force them through her love-tangled throat. She kissed Elsa's neck instead and nuzzled into her.

Then her hands drifted up, up over the icy dress Elsa wore, until she held Elsa's neck, and she lifted her head and softly took Elsa's lips with her own. Elsa immediately responded to the kiss by uttering yet another plaintive and devastating cry, and once again those obsidian butterflies hovered in Anna's breast, wounding her with the deepest of desire, and she wished, oh how she wished she could say what she wanted to say, that it was more than familial love that she felt for her sister, more than this kiss that sustained her every hope and dream, for as foolish and clumsy as it may seem, Anna was in love, and wanted nothing more than to prove it in spoken word as well as this incredible meeting of mouth and lips.

Suddenly Elsa stiffened in her arms and abruptly pulled away, and Anna was forced to release her, drawing back in anxiety and fear.

What she saw next was nearly indescribable. The image of it would be locked forever in the golden vault of her heart and memory, right next to seeing Elsa for the first time on the balcony of her ice palace.

Elsa was kneeling tall before Anna in her shimmering ice dress, and snow was falling upon her. Her eyes were closed, and her face was lifted up, up as if she were facing the heavens instead of the high ceiling of the ballroom. Her arms had been flung way back, leaving her heart open and vulnerable, her breasts proud and rearing; she appeared as if about to fly.

Great snowy wings burst into existence from her shoulders, unfurling massive and majestic.

And with a strange concussive _whoomph_ that propelled Anna's bench straight back several feet, a ripple in the air just before Elsa's angelic body swelled into an enormous bubble, cradling a broken snowman inside.

The protective bubble of ice dissolved as it touched the floor, and Anna had just enough wits to dart forward and catch Olaf in her arms.

The universe stilled.

And Anna looked up over the weak and broken snowman and saw her sister glow with an ethereal light that came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Elsa's face slowly swivelled back down from her heavenly contemplation, and her chest was heaving with energy and effort and breath. Her wings folded back into themselves as her head came back down to earth, her arms returning to her sides. And when she slowly opened her eyes once more, those glorious wings dissolved entirely.

Anna could only stare. She was dumbstruck with the incredible display of Elsa's power. As impressive and monumental as her ice palace had been, it was obvious that Elsa had somehow manipulated the very fabric of reality, transporting Olaf instantly across many treacherous miles and difficult terrain.

_How is this possible?_

Elsa stared right back at her. Their eyes were sparking against each other, superb, transcendent.

And for the first time since learning of Elsa's powers and seeing them in action, Anna felt no sting of jealousy or pang of envy. She looked upon her sister and felt only the greatest of love, the gift of her own heart and soul, with a power equal to that of Elsa.

Yet these moments were not languid with time, and Anna forced her attention back to the dear little snowman before her.

It appeared as if someone, perhaps one of the trolls, had been trying to patch Olaf's melted and dissolved bits with fresh and ordinary powder, for these makeshift patches fell apart in the ballroom like the most damning leprosy, leaving him with great gouges. One of his arms was missing, as were the branches of his hair and the carrot for his nose. He didn't appear alive at all, and grief made an iron fist of Anna's heart.

She looked up in time to see Elsa shuffle near her, her face openly stricken. Elsa did not hesitate before placing her palm over Olaf's little chest, and it looked so barren without the simple rock that had once been there.

"I must have made him a heart," Elsa murmured. "Oh, dear one, let me find your heart."

Anna nearly held her breath as she cradled Olaf and watched Elsa close her eyes in concentration.

Snow continued to fall, miraculously light and dry. The ballroom was a dark and cool womb, perfect for Olaf's rebirthing.

Her awareness coalesced only to this small sphere of tight-knit love and devotion. Anna allowed herself the memory of building the original Olaf, even if it was slightly skewed. She watched Elsa's hand ignite with magic and remembered rolling the snowballs together outside in the crisp and glowing snow; Elsa's talented hands forming that endearing face with its bucktooth.

_"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!" Elsa had said._

_"I love you, Olaf!" Anna had replied, staring only at her sister._

Anna whispered it again here and now as an answering light began to glow deep in the traumatized snowman's chest. "Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs," she murmured, clutching his pieces even tighter to her.

Elsa looked at her, and the surprise and desperation in her eyes turned into a wonderful flowering of hope. Anna was pierced with the depth of that gaze, for she knew she had caused that change in Elsa's emotion and expression, and she realized that she was part catalyst and healer as well. Elsa could not save him alone, for Olaf represented the purest love that had existed between the sisters from the very depths of their childhood.

They built him together, and together they would save him.

Her eyes locked with Elsa's, Anna bent down, and kissed the top of his snowy head, and said, "I love you, Olaf."

The entirety of the snowman's body began to pulse with the same brilliant light that kindled Elsa's hand. Out of another realm of nothingness a new arm and branch of hair appeared, along with a rock for his chest and a slightly bulbous carrot for his nose.

Still the sisters eyes were only for each other, even as the remainder of the snowman was restored, every curve back to its endearing imperfection. All that remained was the breath of life, and the resurrection of Olaf's soul.

Somehow Anna knew exactly what to do.

Unbidden, unspoken, both young women leaned towards each other and shared yet another kiss over the head of the little snowman. Each sister had one hand on Olaf's body, and the other hand cupped a beloved face. It was a brief kiss, filled with understanding and promise.

"Anna? Elsa?"

Anna's entire heart roared in joy to hear Olaf's voice, and she smiled as the kiss ended. In tandem the sisters looked down at the snowman in their laps.

"Hi Olaf," Anna said. "Welcome home."

* * *

><p><em>AN: I changed up the chapter title this time. It's not a song, but I believe it really fits. Happy New Year to all my readers! _


	13. Chapter 13 - Coming Home

**Chapter Thirteen – Coming Home**

Anna got exhausted just watching Elsa work. Shortly after their heart-touching reunion with Olaf, Elsa had cleared away the ice and snow of the ballroom and escorted both Anna and Olaf (once again protected by a flurry) into their favourite sitting room. Anna had only a short bolt of fear that Elsa would leave her in order to finalize plans for getting word to Kristoff and the trolls; once again Elsa astounded her with insight, and stayed. Anna was tucked into the couch, Olaf sat beside her beaming his sweet snowy grin, and Elsa sat in the chair opposite, easily able to keep an eye on Anna while speaking with Kai and the Captain of the Guard.

A small detachment of the guard was immediately sent up to the North Mountain, there to escort Kristoff home in safety and to provide an explanation for Olaf's abrupt disappearance.

Well, an approximate explanation, for no one yet understood how Elsa did what she did.

Anna was busy enough with her own conversation, and it took a great deal of effort to focus solely on the snowman. Every courtly manner drilled into her by tutors and parents was necessary to keep her from gazing at Elsa. She owed Olaf her attention, so she gave it to him. He wanted every detail of their illnesses, and his face was understandably pained when she told him of her pneumonia, the tube in her chest and the endless coughing. He smiled when she spoke of the sickroom music concert and Sera's promise to take them to her chalet for more rest and recovery. His face grew thoughtful when she related how Elsa changed her mind about going up the mountain to save him.

"She's grown up, you know," Olaf suddenly said, glancing over at the Queen.

Given such permission, Anna glanced over as well, and her heart swelled with pride and devotion as she saw Elsa in soft debate with Kai over the writ that would give power to the regency council for the next month. "Why do you say that, Olaf?" she asked, looking back at the snowman.

"We met in this room once after she had a nightmare, and I wondered why she didn't wake you up. She said you needed rest. It made me wonder what she needed most, and why she always put her needs aside. I don't think she understood back then how important it is to love yourself as much as you love others. It's easier to play the songs of life and love on an instrument that isn't broken."

Olaf's words and beautiful metaphor caused a small explosion of understanding to brighten her heart. She stared at the snowman with an expression akin to wonder. "You are kind of amazing, you know that?" she said.

Olaf ducked his head and chuckled.

Anna kept looking at him, all soft and strong. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, Olaf. I guess none of us really realized how Elsa supports her magic. It was awful to see your flurry disappear and to know it was because…" Anna abruptly shut her mouth, for the grief was still too close for comfort, the nearness of Elsa's demise causing an avalanche of sorrow even here and now where she could see Elsa speak and laugh and live and breathe.

Olaf put his hand on Anna's. "It was scary," the snowman admitted. "I really wanted to stay, because I love Elsa too. She is another person worth melting for."

"And will you also put your needs aside, Olaf?" Anna gently asked. "I mean, we would do anything for you. What does your heart truly want?"

Olaf turned his head and looked into the empty hearth of the fireplace. Anna's attention was upon him, but she could sense the quiet in the room, and in her peripheral vision she saw Elsa shush Kai. In the silence that ascended they could hear the bustle of the village, the clatter of carts and horses hooves on cobblestones, the crying of the fishmongers, the laughter of children.

All eyes were on the little snowman.

Still silence reigned.

"Olaf?" Elsa quietly asked.

Anna saw Olaf look in Elsa's direction, and some sort of unspoken communication must have passed between them, because Elsa abruptly yet gently dismissed Kai from the room and closed the door behind him.

Then they were three, and Anna was astonished to see Elsa ignore the empty space opposite Olaf on the couch. Instead Elsa drew near her, and sat gracefully on the floor at Anna's feet, leaning against Anna's legs. Another lesson from her tutor came back in a flash, and she smiled at Elsa's queenly attention to detail, providing Olaf the comfort to speak his mind without having to turn his head back and forth to differing ends of the couch during his conversation. It was a gesture of civility so understated it was nearly unnoticeable, but then again, Anna noticed everything about Elsa now.

She noticed that Elsa put a hand on her ankle, and held her, grounding her with touch. Anna's heart swelled with devotion at the simple touch, and she in turn put her hand on Elsa's shoulder.

Anna couldn't see Elsa's face, but the caring in her voice was obvious as she spoke, "Olaf, honey, you don't have to tell us anything if you don't want to. Just know that Anna and I love you very much, and we just want you to be happy." She punctuated her words with a squeeze to Anna's ankle, resulting in a glorious constriction of Anna's heart.

"I saw you kissing each other as I woke up," Olaf said, his voice slightly murky and confused.

Anna blushed, and tried to think of the right thing to say, but Elsa beat her to it.

"That's right, Olaf. We love each other more than ever before. For my part, it was really scary to see Anna so sick. It was terrifying to think that I could lose her again, just as I did on the ice that day, and I know how scared she was for me, too, when I came so close to dying of fever. She was scared for us both." There was a tiny catch in Elsa's voice, and Anna tightened her grip on Elsa's shoulder.

Her touch drew Elsa's gaze, and Elsa looked at her as she continued, "I need my family more than ever, and I want to show my family how much they mean to me." Then she looked back at Olaf and put her hand on his snowy leg, saying, "You are part of my family now, Olaf. Your happiness means a lot to me."

Anna saw Olaf look between them, and the dawn of understanding on his face was most splendid to behold. "I'm… family?" Olaf asked.

"Yes," Anna said, supporting Elsa's statement.

"I've never had a family before. Can Kristoff and Sven be part of our family, too?"

From the small portion of Elsa's face that Anna could see, she knew Elsa was reeling slightly from the question. She could practically feel the pain the question caused in her sister's heart.

Anna's answer would change everything, and she knew it.

This was the moment to speak. She felt the golden majesty of it, as perfect and immediate as the angelic wings that had suddenly appeared upon her sister just an hour ago.

Anna replied, "In a way, they already are. We love them both, and we are grateful for everything they have done for us. But you should know something, Olaf. I will never marry Kristoff, because I'm not in love with him. I'm in love with Elsa."

Five words to reset the course of her future, and Anna's heart was glorious and quaking. Truth vibrated in the air.

And Elsa turned around on her knees to face Anna head-on, her brilliant blue eyes open wide in wonder. Anna needed no other confirmation, for Elsa's expressive face revealed everything. All words of commitment and faith, all kisses of hope and desire, all touches and hugs and simple acts of devotion were made sacred by the depth of love so apparent in Elsa's countenance.

And it was for her, all of it for her. Anna felt she could leap from the earth and dance among the clouds for the beauty of it.

"Say it again, please," Elsa begged, her hands now tight on Anna's knees.

Anna let go of Olaf's hand, and she placed it on Elsa's cool cheek. "I'm in love with you, Elsa. Only you. Always you."

There was never anything so beautiful as the expression of longing on Elsa's face. As if from a distance Anna heard Elsa say, "Olaf, if you don't mind, I'd really like to kiss Anna again right now."

"Fine by me," the snowman chortled.

Elsa's hands reached up for Anna's face and drew their lips together in such heat and passion it was almost rough. Of all the kisses they had shared until now, none of them could have the soaring quality of this, this kiss that held no more fear, no more doubt. Only love.

Anna wrapped her arms around Elsa's neck and shoulders as she kissed her again and again, and only Olaf's presence kept her from opening her mouth and drawing Elsa inside, to welcome her to all the secret places of Anna's body and soul.

At last Elsa broke the kiss and held Anna's head, her hands beautiful on Anna's scalp, her ruby lips next to Anna's ear, and each gasp of her breath was throbbing with fulfillment and devotion. Their breasts against each other, Elsa part of her own skin now, hearts and lungs and souls merging together in a love to survive the ages, and then Elsa spoke the words to provide Anna with the final key to this love of her lifetime, a key to a most wondrous future. "Oh, Anna, I'm in love with you, too."

Anna felt tears of joy gather in the corners of her eyes, and her hands tightened on Elsa's back. A million balloons of joy lifted her heart.

Then they came apart, and looked deeply into each other's eyes, and then with one intention they turned to look at the snowman they had created together, and saved together. His body was Elsa's gift, but the love that burned in his heart came from Anna.

His soul was his own.

Olaf appeared utterly transformed. His snowy form glowed in the energy of their love, and in the purity of his acceptance of it.

"Wow," he said. "It all makes perfect sense now. You love Elsa more than anyone else. No wonder you were able to sacrifice yourself to save her that day on the ice. You know, you could have just kissed her then, and we wouldn't have had to see you freeze to death. It was really awful, Anna, seeing you all icy and frozen, and wondering if you would be gone forever."

Elsa kept hold of one of Anna's hands as she resumed her position on the floor. "It was scary, wasn't it, Olaf?" Elsa quietly mused. "But even now, I wouldn't change how things happened that day. I was such a different person back then; I was so scared of everything around me, scared of hurting the people I loved, scared of my true potential. If Anna hadn't been frozen, I might never have reached the lowest and most heart-wrenching moment of my life. Because it was in that moment, when everything seemed darkest, that I knew how much I needed her light."

Elsa was looking at Anna now, and continued, "How much I would now fight to have her, and to keep her, and to love her for the rest of her life."

"You really think so?" Olaf mused, drawing their attention back to him. "You wouldn't have changed all those bad things that happened?"

"Bad things happen, so we can appreciate the good things so much more," Anna said.

"You've given me a lot to think about," Olaf said, looking between the sisters. "Anna told me that you are going away for a while. Is it okay if I stay here in the palace even if you aren't here? I don't really have a place of my own to call home."

Elsa reached out her hand, and held Olaf's beloved twiggy hand. "Olaf, if you wish it, this will be your home. But sweetheart, remember that home isn't always a place. It's a state of grace. Anna is my home now. Wherever she is, is home to me. You can stay with us and be home, or you can live with Kristoff and Sven, and you'll still be home."

Olaf smiled a great snowy grin. "Home is where the heart is," he giggled. "I'm a love expert too, you know."

"Is there anything else we can do for you before we finish preparations to leave tomorrow?" Elsa asked.

"Nope. Now that I've got my flurry back, I think I'll go experience a bit more summer. You know, bees a-buzz…"

"Kissable dandelion fuzz," Anna continued, a grin on her face.

"And I'll be doing whatever snow does in summer…" Olaf said, his face perfectly wreathed in a smile.

…

Elsa had a hard time concentrating on the final draft of the writ, the one Kai provided after she and Anna had shared a brief lunch. Anna would not leave her to go sleep, even though her face was frighteningly pale and every movement of her body appeared wilted. Anna stayed curled into the couch, and every so often she would jerk herself awake, look at Elsa, and then fall back into a restless doze.

There wasn't much left to do. The size and composition of the party who would stay the entire month had been determined: Kai and Gerda would attend them, a Lieutenant Commander would provide security and his partner would take up duties as a sous-chef in the kitchen. An additional detachment of the guard would provide four new officers on a weekly rotating basis and replenish any supplies.

Finally she signed the writ, witnessed by Duke Ostven and the Bishop. She was introduced to the Lieutenant Commander, Ser Gunnarsson, and his handsome partner, Ser Lindberg. She smiled at the two very obviously nervous young men and mentally gave Kai a prayer of thanks. Elsa had been peripherally aware of same sex relationships within the ranks of the navy and nobility, and it eased her heart considerably to know that judgment on her relationship with her sister would be suspended for the duration of this holiday.

She would face the rest of the world later.

Elsa didn't need the note that was sent by Sera, warning her to get herself and Anna to bed for a nap, for she had exhausted herself in these small duties. At her request, Ser Gunnarsson lifted the sleeping Princess from her perch on the couch and carried her the short distance to her bedroom. Elsa flitted ahead to pull down the covers, so grateful to be back in their own rooms. He draped Anna in her bed, bowed to the Queen, and left, closing the door behind him.

Elsa wasted no time in changing her dress and slipping between the sheets. She put her head on the pillow and contemplated her brave and beautiful girl. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear, and then traced the line of her jaw. She touched Anna's lower lip with the tips of her fingers. She watched the steady rise and fall of Anna's breasts, deep and peaceful, and so much improved from those wretched days of coughing and heaving and carving up for catheters.

Tiredness filled her eyes with fog, and though she wished she could stay awake and continue this blessed consideration of Anna's features, Elsa slipped into sleep.

The room was beginning to dim when next she opened her eyes. Disoriented for only a moment, Elsa turned over and saw Anna looking at her from her pillow.

Beautiful, sleep-mussed and dearest Anna. Would there ever be a day she would look at Anna and not feel soaring warmth and longing?

"Hi," Anna said.

"Um, hi?"

"Did you have a good nap?"

"Yes. How about you?"

"Me, too. Thank you for staying with me, Elsa."

"If I had my way, I'd never be apart from you."

"Now that we're awake, should we talk about what happened earlier?" Anna asked, rather tentatively. "I mean, I didn't exactly intend on spilling my heart to you with anyone else in the room, but it just felt right. Olaf's question needed to be answered, and I didn't want you to have a single worry about Kristoff and me."

"Your timing was perfect. You are right, the moment Olaf asked about Kristoff being part of our family, my heart about stopped. I cared so much for you, and I thought you cared for me, too, but I wasn't sure of anything until you said it outright."

Anna smiled, but then a sharp grimace crossed her face and she put her hand over her chest even as she forced herself upright and into a seated position, cross-legged on the bed. Elsa's eyes flew open in alarm and she sat up as well. "Anna?"

"That damn hole. Just give me a second."

That damn hole indeed! Elsa blazed in concern for her, wishing with all her heart that she could erase this pain. She would even take it upon herself to spare her sister. This pain truly was Elsa's fault, for she had kept Anna up on the bell tower that awful night.

She looked down and saw her hands wringing together. Anna put her hand over Elsa's, and looked right into her eyes. "I know what you are thinking," Anna said. "You are remembering the night on the bell tower."

"Did you somehow turn into a psychic?" Elsa wryly countered. "You've been rather uncanny with perception lately."

"Not exactly. I just think that is where we ought to begin. That night changed everything again, but we haven't been able to talk about it. Not with the whole castle interrupting us at every opportune moment. Speaking of which, do we expect anyone to come barging in here? Apparently my threats of public flogging aren't sufficient to provide privacy."

"Not without facing Sera Avundir's wrath. She was rather adamant in her instructions for us to get extra sleep today. No one is to disturb us, at least not until we open the door and prove that we are awake. As long as the door is closed, we'll be left alone."

"Finally a good reason for closed doors. Elsa, about that night, there on the bell tower…" and then Anna hesitated, one hand still over the hole in her chest.

"No more fear, sweetie," Elsa said, squeezing the hand she held. "Say something. Say anything. I'm here."

Anna wasn't quite able to look at Elsa in the eyes, so she spoke into the darkening air of her bedchamber. "That was the longest night of my life. There was nothing I could do for you. You wouldn't respond to anything I did, in holding you or calling your name or kissing your head. It was unbearable, Elsa, to see you in such agony, and be able to do nothing for you."

Elsa shuddered with the images of those words but she would not look away. She would support Anna here, as Anna had supported her that fateful night.

"And then you got so sick, and that awful trainee was going to open up your veins and bleed you while Sera was resting, but I took care of him good, and I didn't even need to punch him after all." Elsa couldn't help but smile as Anna continued. "But nothing was working, and then your ice dress suddenly dissolved and Olaf's flurry failed, and Sera told me that it was nearly over, that you were dying.

"So, so after the Bishop had come with the rites, I made everyone else leave, Elsa, and I sat by your bed and took your hand and I – I…."

Elsa's heart was breaking, seeing the sorrow of her sister and remembering her own despair at Anna's pneumonia and slow recovery.

"I begged every God in the universe to bring you back to me. And then I made a promise, and that promise I have kept."

Anna looked at her, and the failing afternoon sunlight was so very bountiful on her eyes and face. "I promised to make a gift of my heart for you," Anna whispered. "That I would give you my love, even if you didn't want to receive it." All the fire of her soul was back in abundance, the precious vitality that was Anna-like in the extreme, and her eyes raged incandescent with conviction. "If you had died, Elsa, I could not have lived without you. I love you more than life itself. My heart is yours. Please take it."

And Elsa felt as if she had been given the keys to heaven itself, there in the proffering of Anna's heart. She knew the current that flowed beneath these sentiments, for it was the same current that carried her own love to distant shores and distant times, and all for Anna.

The words of love were a charm to ease all aches and worries, and Elsa felt renewed, resurrected. To hear them again, just as she had earlier this day; every time she heard it she believed it more, she believed she was worth Anna's sacrifices, worth Anna's love.

That Anna loved her as desperately as she loved Anna was a gift straight from heaven. Even now she couldn't speak of it, lest her words stumble in their delivery.

So she reached with her hands instead, and touched Anna's beloved face.

A streak of pure desire rocketed through Elsa at this contact. A glorious tightness thickened and multiplied in her breast, soon becoming the most incredible of sensations ever experienced thus far in her love-starved life, and she knew, how she knew that something even greater lay just beyond the horizon. What waited for her now was the love that was shared between partners at the cresting of the midnight moon through tall clouds, when skin was slick and breath was bright, and one-ness beckoned.

And ecstasy raged inside her, for she had discovered beauty, and beauty was Anna and Anna was beauty and there was no more room in her heart for all the adoration she felt. Her breath hitched on Anna's cheek, causing a most delightful shiver of skin, and Anna mewed in surprise and delight.

The tight ball of love-hunger forming in Elsa's stomach was radiant, insistent. And Elsa had learned enough about her Anna to know that word and action had to go together, and though she spoke the fateful words

_(I'm in love with you, too)_

just hours ago, she had to speak them again and erase all vestiges of doubt.

She would bare her heart and fulfil the promise she herself made to an unconscious Anna, to leave her in no doubt as to her regard, to bare the depths of her heart and soul with all its hope and vulnerability.

Anna's blue orbs were stormy with passion and conviction, and they were the most enchanting eyes Elsa had ever seen, and in looking at them now Elsa knew she wanted those eyes for the rest of her life, only those eyes and no others, consequences be damned.

Though she wanted to speak, she wanted Anna's lips more. And once Anna recognized Elsa's intent, for she leaned forward and pressed her mouth against Elsa's.

The kiss was infinitely long, for there was no rush now, not when the future lay so golden and abundant before them. Elsa melted into Anna's lips, and as Anna opened her mouth to breathe, oh such soft butterfly breaths, Elsa dipped the tip of her tongue inside her velvet mouth.

The joy in her heart cascaded in sheets of devotion and affection. To her everlasting wonder and delight Anna lifted her hands and held Elsa's head in place, keeping their lips moving together in this boundless expression of true love.

Sitting thus, embracing her sister with such devotion, kissing her softly again and yet again, Elsa only knew she was crying when a faint taste of salt appeared on her tongue.

"No more tears," Anna whispered, wiping away the offenders with her thumb before she captured Elsa's lips with her own, moving almost desperately against her.

Elsa ran her fingers into Anna's hair, and took control of the kiss again, tilting Anna's head so she could kiss her on the side of her mouth, on the smooth line of her jaw. Anna inclined her neck, such a lovely plane of skin! Elsa kissed her there as well, and when her mouth moved on top of her artery, that heartbeat that had been so changed, she touched it with the tip of her tongue before kissing it, ever so gently.

"I'm in love with you, Anna," Elsa whispered into her neck. "Dearest heart, I love you and want to be with you forever."

It was Anna who convulsed lightly in emotion this time, a single tear making its way down her cheek. Elsa lifted her head and looked upon Anna with every ounce of devotion that burned in her heart.

"Ssh, my love, my darling," Elsa whispered. "Everything will be all right now."

Anna ducked her head at those words so she could look into Elsa's eyes. "I know you said that earlier, but part of me wonders if I might just be dreaming all this. Do you really mean it, Elsa? Is it really true?"

Elsa lifted her hand and touched Anna's cheek, using her thumb to wipe away the teary streak. "I realized I fell in love with you the morning of the skating party. You had been holding me, and comforting me after a nightmare, and all of a sudden I knew it, I knew I loved you as more than a sister. I couldn't say it back then, Anna. I was afraid of your reaction, and of rejection. You're my sister. I didn't dare believe that you could possibly love me the way I love you. That you do is the greatest gift of my life and soul.

"Anna of Arendelle, my brave and beautiful Anna, I am so in love with you."

And the grandeur of the cosmos was reflected in Anna's sparkling eyes, in the fulfillment of the greatest wish of her heart. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and leaned forward to hungrily kiss Elsa again.

The longing of a thousand years breaking over them now, the desire of completion, of one-ness, and all of it was written in the hot and fierce kisses shared between kindred souls. Anna's lips were hard against hers, crushing, bruising, and Elsa succumbed to her, to the blazing love-light that was her own cherished one, her own dearest heart.

Until Anna's depleted body could no longer handle the rawness of emotion; the weakness of illness finally taking the last of her strength, and she broke the intense kiss to gain a breath and to put her hand once again over the hole in her breast.

Elsa held her, and made soothing noises for her, rubbing her back and waiting, ever waiting for the storm of breath to ease.

"What happened when I was sick, Elsa?" Anna asked, her words muffled by speaking into the fabric of Elsa's dress.

Elsa continued to languidly rub Anna's back as she chose the words to say. "Terror, at first," she said slowly. "You collapsed right in front of me. They tried to make me leave, but I wouldn't. You appeared half awake and half asleep at the same time because of your coughing, and as the hours passed we could barely get enough fluid into you to keep you from dehydration.

"I was terrified for you, and wanted to find Kristoff so he could spend some time with you, and that's how I learned that Olaf's flurry vanished, how they all went up the mountain to save him.

"The worst part was the catheter. Sera wanted me to leave, but I couldn't. I wouldn't. She gave you laudanum, and the blood that came from your chest when she carved it open… God, Anna!"

Anna lifted her face, much dimmer now that the afternoon was morphing into the evening, and she gently and briefly kissed Elsa's lips. Then she drew away, but held Elsa's face close, forehead to forehead. "I'm here, honey. I'll never leave you again. You are a part of me, Elsa, now and forever."

"Come here," Elsa whispered, lying back down in the bed, pulling on Anna's hand.

And Anna came to her, and in the satiny glow of a new evening Elsa kissed her willing lips, and cradled her along every curve of her body, and it felt like coming home.

* * *

><p><em>The next update will be in a week or so! Feel free to check out my newest Frozen fic, Dark Horse. It's a modern AU, so it will be very different from this. It should be listed in my profile. Give that little review box below a little love, and I promise to have Anna sword fighting again in no time. Good opportunity for a massage from her sister, yes?<em>


	14. Chapter 14 - Leap of Faith

**Note: We're only a couple chapters away from the ending. I hope you enjoy the rest of the journey. The next few chapters definitely have mature themes.**

**Chapter Fourteen – Leap of Faith**

Love.

In love.

A universe of potential and complexity in a single word of two lowly letters. An impossibly short utterance with the means to divert whole futures. Quite possibly the scariest two letter word in the history of humankind, especially regarding non-traditional relationships. To say that particular word combination was to open every vault of the heart, and then to hope and ceaselessly pray that no harm would come of such vulnerability and openness.

A leap of faith, from love to in love.

"Anna, sweetheart, what are you thinking about?" Elsa had just asked.

It was that leap of faith Anna had been pondering as a new sun began to ascend over the fjord, a glowing orb so bright it was like gold drawn from the purity of a soul-forge. A new day had come, and it was time for yet another leap of faith. Elsa's question hung in the air between them.

It had been relatively easy to leap across that great chasm days ago, hearing the tearing of wolf claws against brittle snow, the frantic breath of a labouring reindeer, for there had been no other choice. Leap. Or die.

Infinitely harder had been the leap Anna performed yesterday morning. There had been no threat of impending demise to narrow her options down to a mere sliver of choice, to leap or die. The multiverse of her future was like a tree with a million branches. She could have blithely followed any of them to happiness and fulfillment, either alone or with some partner, or so the outside world would say.

Anna knew otherwise.

Her love for Elsa was not just some random branch high up on the tree of possibility, one of thousands of potential outcomes. No, Elsa was part of her very roots, and together they formed the vast trunk of their Tree of Life. From their lives and choices so tightly wound against each other would come the branches and leaves of the future; in each and every instance they would be together, and face down illness and death and every imaginable upheaval so entwined.

Anna's personal tree of life and love, for she created it from the fires of loss and hope, and she anchored it deep and true the moment she used that incredibly beautiful two letter word.

In.

Love.

A love vast and incredible like a willow tree, love to shelter them from the evils of the world. Hard times had come and gone and would again return, rains and storms and all manner of tempests, but under this great tree of shared love they would be protected, even from the weight of all the world's snow.

These were the delightful and slightly muzzy thoughts of the Princess of Arendelle as she snuggled next to Elsa under the soft light of this new day. And though Elsa had just now asked Anna to share what she had been thinking, to explain the contemplative look on her face, Anna knew she had no way to describe this sensational tree in her heart. It would be like trying to describe a sunset without using colour, or to share a song without using music.

Still, if Elsa asked the question, Anna would answer with all the truth at her command. She would fumble on her ideas, and trip over her own tongue in explanation, but that was okay. Elsa was in love with her too, and that meant acceptance and trust, for big things and small.

Like unconsciously hogging the covers at night.

And accidentally hitting a sleeping partner in the face when rolling over.

So Anna lifted her hand, and traced Elsa's bottom lip with her thumb as she replied, "I was kind of thinking about yesterday. How telling you that I was in love with you was the scariest thing I've ever done. And yes, I'm counting my adventure with ravines and wolves, because that had been the marker of all things terrifying until yesterday."

Elsa turned into Anna's hand, to nuzzle her fingers and kiss her palm, keeping her brilliant blue eyes on Anna all the while. They had napped together yesterday, woken to eat a simple supper and retired quite late. They had slept in Anna's bed, arms and legs tangled and glorious and occasionally striking a partner in the face. In the wake of their declarations of love they had continued to burn bright and hot, every moment including this one.

This moment, with heads on pillows, and peach stripes of sunrise on the wall, the faint clanging of the bells on the tower.

Anna knew she hadn't explained her thoughts very well, but she couldn't try anything better, because Elsa was looking at her.

Not just any look.

It was that smoky look that peeked behind thick eyelashes with eyes that could only be classified as bedroom eyes. Every time Anna saw Elsa look at her with those eyes she felt a magnetic pull, practically an alchemical attraction; she was helpless to thwart or contradict that gaze even if she had the desire to do so. Those eyes tugged deep down at the core of her, and from the heat that began to pulse in hitherto unexplored parts of her body Anna knew she was in love.

Her appetite for Elsa was astonishing. Even after being given so much in the past twenty-four hours, an abundance of kisses and love-murmurs and snuggles, she realized she still wanted more. She wanted to understand the length and breadth of the heat that flared so strongly within her core, and to see what might happen should that heat be applied to the Snow Queen.

Anna licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry under the blaze of Elsa's eyes.

"I can understand scary," Elsa murmured in response. "I felt the same way. The thought of losing you with those words unsaid – that was terrifying. To want you so badly yet to be so unsure… all I can think now is how glad I am that part is over."

"What do you want the next part to look like, Elsa?" Anna asked, her thumb now tracing the line of Elsa's cool jaw.

"I'm not much of a fortune teller, but I'm hoping the next month is going to be pretty nice. Just imagine, Anna, imagine the time and the privacy we will have for the first time in our lives. We can take walks together, and go riding together, and eat lutefisk and enjoy a sauna and read by firelight, all without any threats of public flogging to guarantee our alone time."

"Mmm," Anna agreed, her hand now trailing down Elsa's smooth neck, encountering the light fabric of her nightgown over her shoulder. "And you can watch me practice the blades, and maybe try your hand at archery or something. After the guards thump my ribs a bunch of times, I can even get you to…" and Anna imagined Elsa's hands on her neck and bare shoulders, cool silken hands on her naked back, massaging away the aches of practice, and couldn't finish her sentence.

Apparently she didn't need to complete that sentence, because Elsa's eyes turned mischievous, and light colour on her blushing cheeks filled in the blanks.

"Mmm-hmm," Elsa agreed. Then for some reason Elsa suddenly looked slightly agitated, and her lips opened enough to expel a soft, kitten breath.

One flick of Elsa's eyes down to Anna's questing hand, and Anna realized that she had been stroking Elsa's side, drawing perilously close to her fabric-covered breast. She saw a hard little nub through the fabric, and another wave of heat and pressure crested deep inside as she took two seconds to ponder the implications of that peaked breast.

Two seconds before her thumb grazed lightly over that nub, her eyes fixated on Elsa's face to catch the reaction.

Elsa's eyes widened, and her mouth opened slightly more.

A shiver of anticipation swept Anna's body, and once again she passed her thumb over Elsa's hardened nub, this time pausing long enough to trace a circle around the nipple.

"Anna?" Elsa breathed.

Even up to the end of her days Anna would never forget this first time she heard the richness of her name on Elsa's lips, when it was spoken with an ocean of longing and arousal. A name in the mouth of a lover was spoken like a gift and a promise. The first such utterance of her name on Elsa's lips, and already Anna was drunk on it, intoxicated with the sensation it produced so deep inside. She must hear it again.

Must.

Anna deliberately brushed her thumb once again over the raised peak of Elsa's breast, and then she caught it between thumb and finger, to lightly roll and squeeze.

Elsa tipped her head back, and there was a mewling cry of caramel and honey on her opened lips. Breath turned shallow as her head came forward again, and Elsa quickly conquered Anna's legs, tangling them hard and tight with her own as her hands reached for Anna's face, likely to pull her in for a kiss.

Anna evaded those wonderfully desperate hands and put her mouth over Elsa's fabric-covered nipple, pressing against it with her tongue while her hands cradled Elsa's lower back, pulling her ever closer. She felt Elsa's fingers weave into her unruly hair instead, her chest heaving with a squall of breath, and every reaction was so very delicious to the Princess. She could make it her life's pursuit to discover the sounds Elsa might make should she nip ever so lightly just here, and swirl with her tongue just there, and only her name could ever be spoken like this on Elsa's lips, from now until mountains would crumble into dust.

Anna quickly slid her other hand to Elsa's front, to roll the other neglected breast with her fingers. "Gods above, Anna!" Elsa breathed as she gently yanked on Anna's hair. "Stop. I don't want you to… gods have mercy…"

Anna lifted her head, a quirky smile on her lips. "Stop?" she repeated. "Are you sure that's what you want?" She emphasized her question with yet another roll of beloved flesh.

"No, that's not what I want… Anna, please," Elsa replied, and only the quivering hitch in her voice could have halted Anna as it did now.

A wave of worry suddenly cascaded through Anna's body and she removed her hands. She started to look away, anxious that she had done the wrong thing, but Elsa took hold of her face and stared at her deeply, lovingly. "Anna, my love, my pet, we can't start this now. I want this, and I want you, so much. Please, sweetheart, can we save it just for a little while? I… I can't do this here. Not yet."

Anna took a deep breath and nodded. She understood. They weren't at the chalet quite yet, and the threat of public flogging may still be needed to ensure their getaway.

Elsa covered her mouth with her lips and Anna kissed her back; a somewhat hard kiss that had edges of worry. What if they couldn't get away after all? Could something still happen that would force them to stay here, mired in politics and confused about their relationship?

Elsa seemed aware of Anna's inner turmoil, for she softened the kiss, returning it to a state of caramel and honey.

It was sustenance enough to see them through the next few agonizing hours.

Barely.

Anna suffered through another mug of tonic, bitterly wishing she could have had Elsa freeze the herb garden. Gerda came to help her pack clothing and other essentials for the trip, and even that small activity wore her out completely. She was forced to halt time and again, a hand to the hole in her chest and a grimace on her face, incredibly grateful that Gerda alone witnessed the continuation of her pain. Elsa was packing in her own chambers, and would only worry if she knew how miserable and exhausted Anna felt.

By the time they made it to the forecourt, the carriages were almost completely packed with trunks and bags and various oddments, books and weapons and salted fish. Anna held Elsa's arm and chuckled over it all. "What, no kitchen sink?" she asked as Ser Lindberg fastened the last of the spare tack for the horses at the back of the second carriage.

"Alas, a kitchen sink is much too luxurious for the likes of simple peasants such as we," Sera Avundir joked as she strode up beside Elsa. Anticipation of going home lifted years off her face, and Anna had never seen her so carefree. "If you're lucky, we'll rinse the plate off in a stream before handing it to the next person to use."

"If you're short on crockery, we have eight thousand salad plates," Anna replied.

"Two thousand, dearest," Elsa deadpanned.

"Right. Two thousand. I can spare you maybe half a dozen. As a loan. Terms of repayment may involve cookies."

"What an acute sense of generosity," Sera smirked.

"Perfect with a side of sarcasm," Anna replied. The Royal Physician gave a sharp and pleasant bark of laughter as she glanced over at her. Anna chuckled at her own wit until the itchy and deep pressure in her chest made her double over in a flurry of coughing, releasing Elsa's arm with one hand to cover her mouth.

And with that, all levity perished.

Anna was slow to catch her breath, and she could feel the presence of Elsa's anxiety like a physical touch on her skin. She squeezed Elsa's arm to reassure her. "I'm fine," Anna said, mostly telling the truth. She didn't feel like mentioning that itch that slumbered like an omnipresent and irritable troll behind her lungs, nor the trip-tripping of her altered heart.

Elsa's mouth had been slightly grim, and she loosened it but a little at Anna's words. The physician glanced between both of them and then hurried over to the carriage, likely to use the sharper side of her tongue in hastening their departure.

Anna was about to use her own gilded tongue to assure Elsa of her well-being, but was interrupted in her plan by the sudden skidding entrance of a certain snowman, and the breath of chill air that always surrounded him.

"What's up, little guy?" she asked, resuming her two-handed hold on Elsa's arm.

"I was looking out from the balcony and saw that Kristoff and Sven are almost back. Wow, that's some good timing, isn't it? He's been so worried about you."

Both of the royal siblings turned to look down the bridge that led to the village. Sure enough, they could see two of the palace guard trotting briskly behind the young man on his reindeer. They would be crossing the bridge in a matter of minutes.

"Yeah," Anna murmured. "Good timing. Dammit."

That last word was for Elsa's ears alone, and from the corner of her eye she saw Elsa smile. Anna's own smile was faint in comparison. Deep down she had sort of hoped that she would be gone on vacation before Kristoff returned. It would have been the perfect excuse to put off the conversation she must have with him.

Be brave.

Right.

With an almost inaudible sigh, she reluctantly let go of Elsa's arm, giving it a quick squeeze before walking away. She instantly missed the solid comfort of her older sister, and the support she had given to Anna's watery bones. She felt weak, and she hated it.

Anna couldn't help but grin at the young man as Sven brought him to a near precipitous halt at the entrance to the forecourt. Two seconds later Kristoff wrapped her in an enormous hug, even lifting her off the ground. Oh, she would always cherish this part of him, his innocent need for human hugs, even enjoying the earthy smell of dust and reindeer fur.

"Hey there, feisty-pants," he said, finally setting her back on her feet.

"Hey to you, too," she said, holding his hand. "It's good to see you. How are you?"

"Better now that I can see you and know that you're okay. The last week has been kinda freaky."

"Freakier than the time my sister went all ice crazy?"

"Um, yeah. Ice I can understand. Mostly. You, however, I don't think I'll ever completely understand." He nervously ran his hand through his hair and abruptly continued, "Not that I thought I could ever understand even the smallest part of the collective consciousness of women."

"Collective consciousness?"

"You know! The global conspiracy of all women to keep all men in the dark."

"Why are you rambling?" she sweetly asked, even going so far as to bat her eyelashes at her friend. Anything to defuse the volatile emotion she could feel under his skin and under his words. He had left her so quickly in order to try and save Olaf, and the severed remains of their last conversation still decomposed at their feet.

Her question managed to calm him, but before he could answer she said, "It's all right, Kristoff. I know why. You were worried about me. The brief summary is this: I did get really sick. I had pneumonia, though it's mostly gone now. I'm still feeling weak, and need a lot of rest, so Sera Avundir is taking us up to her chalet at Lost Island Lake. We'll be there for a month, at the end of which I'll come back so freaking healthy I'll be able to beat you at any sport of your choice."

"Even troll tossing?"

"Bring it on."

Kristoff laughed. Then he looked closely at her and said, "By us, I assume you mean you and Elsa."

"Yes."

The great question hovered between them. Anna could see the pain of it in Kristoff's every movement. He was too much of a gentleman to ask outright

_(you're in love with her_

_but is she in love with you?)_

but still the question remained.

As much as Anna wished to be honest with Kristoff, at this exact moment she found she had no strength left for truth. All she wanted was to be in the carriage with Elsa and forget the terrible hurt she had brought to Kristoff. All the romance novels she had ever read had been rather erroneous in their description of love triangles; writers spoke of sweet melancholy and conflicting desires that led to inevitable heartbreak. They spoke of this pain as if it was something to be desired, as if it should be the goal of every woman to stand between lovers and determine her own worth through her lover's eyes.

They were wrong.

There was nothing sweet or melancholy about this.

It just fucking hurt, and they all felt it.

Kristoff let go of her hand. It felt like he had chopped it off at the wrist.

"I, uh, hope you have a good time. I just want you to get better," Kristoff said. "Speaking of Elsa, how is she doing?"

He looked over Anna's shoulder and Anna turned as well.

Elsa was wearing an ice dress of shimmering blues and silvers. Her slippers had a bit of heel to them, and her spine was wondrously elegant and long as a result. The waterfall of platinum hair had silver ribbons braided into it. She was in conversation with Kai, but her head tilted to face Anna and Kristoff as she realized they were looking at her.

Anna's mouth went dry at the sight of her, and she quickly glanced back at Kristoff. "She's getting stronger," Anna replied. "Thank the gods for that. It got bad, Kristoff. Real bad. The Bishop gave her the rites." Even now Anna couldn't say that Elsa had been dying, and hoped Kristoff would understand what that actually meant.

By the shock on his face, it appeared he understood completely. "I didn't know that. Anna… I'm sorry. That must have been terrifying. I mean, I've never known a human family, but the trolls… I would be devastated if anything happened to them. I'm glad they're rather sturdy, not prone to much injury or illness."

Anna nodded. She was about to speak when that itch opened its claws deep inside, making her cough those awful wet coughs as if she was spewing out a thunderstorm with jagged edges of lightning. She grasped his hand to stay upright as the coughing fit passed.

Another conversation with Kristoff lying dead on the cobblestone.

"I think they're ready for you," Kristoff said, patting Anna's arm and guiding her back into the forecourt.

Elsa must have heard the coughs; she had such an expression of worry on her face. It looked as if she ached to run to Anna's side but held herself back out of respect for their privacy. No threat of public flogging was necessary for the ever diplomatic and gracious Queen.

It was just one of the million reasons Anna was in love with her.

Anna saw Elsa's gaze flicker between them as they approached. Kristoff halted just before her and gave her a rather stiff and clumsy bow. "Your Majesty," he said.

"Kristoff, please. I'm just Elsa to you. How are you? I can't thank you enough for taking care of Olaf." All of them glanced over to the snowman. He had eagerly climbed onto Sven's back and was regaling the reindeer with his tale of rebirth.

"…and all of a sudden I open my eyes and see them kissing in front of me…"

Anna blushed, Elsa's eyes widened, and Kristoff coughed into his hand before quickly saying, "I'm fine, good in fact. Gooder than good. Thanks for asking." He cleared his throat and added, "So, Anna tells me you're off to the mountains for a while. That will be nice. Sera Avundir must be excited to go home."

"We've run her ragged for a while now and she's tired of missing out on her vacation. It will be good for all of us to rest and regain strength," Elsa replied.

An uncomfortable silence emerged after Elsa spoke, and they could hear Olaf telling Sven about how much Elsa had grown up. Soon the snowman would reveal the rest of the conversation that happened in the sitting room, and Anna's ears burned to think of it. She was grateful when Kai approached the small party and told Elsa that they were ready to go.

It was better this way. Kristoff would hear it from Olaf, and he would understand. And if he didn't understand, at least he would have some alone time to adjust.

The evasion of this vital conversation still didn't make Anna feel very good about herself. She turned to face Kristoff, tears sparking behind her eyes. "I'll see you when I get back, okay? And don't worry. Everything is going to be fine." She opened her arms for a hug and was again enveloped in his sturdy warmth.

In another place and time she could have loved him with the passion and devotion he deserved. But that was just a fairy tale of an idea, for only the here and now existed. And here and now there was only Elsa.

"Get better. That's an order," he said as he released her. Anna clicked her heels together and saluted him.

Then Kristoff and Elsa looked at each other, unsure of the status of their relationship, until Elsa quickly leaned forward and lightly kissed Kristoff on the cheek. He looked completely astonished for a moment and then he said, "Take care of her, Elsa. She's rather special."

"Yes, she is," Elsa agreed, "and yes, I will. Is there anything you need before we leave? I made arrangements for you to have residence in the village should you wish. There is a room at the Queen's Blessing with your name on it, and a stall with a sack of carrots for Sven. I can't have my Royal Ice Master sleeping in barns or the bush."

Kristoff gaped at her, his expression identical to the moment Anna had given him his sled.

Anna felt an incredible surge of pride and warmth for her sister. She had no idea Elsa made those arrangements.

"Wow, really?" Kristoff asked. "Are you serious? I mean, I couldn't…"

"You can, and you will," Elsa replied firmly. "If you want it."

"Thank you, Elsa. I'll see you guys in a month. Enjoy your holiday."

Anna resumed her grip on Elsa's arm and they both smiled at the young man before turning away. Soon Anna was being helped into the second carriage by Ser Gunnarson, who then took the driving seat. His partner was driving the first carriage with Kai, Gerda, and Sera Avundir inside. For at least the first portion of their journey, Elsa and Anna would be alone in their carriage.

Anna blew kisses to Kristoff, Sven and Olaf out of the open window as they drove away, and the click-clacking of the horses hooves was incredibly welcoming, for it meant they had done it, they were actually going away. She snuggled into Elsa's side; her sister's arm draped over her shoulders.

"Is everything okay?" Elsa asked.

"It is now. It's actually happening, isn't it? We're actually getting away."

"No kingdom. No worries."

Their lips met in a soft and fervent kiss as the carriage rolled out of the village, upward and onward to the place where the mountains met the sky.

Thus began the last best journey of Anna's life.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Yes, I'm planning a sequel.**


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